stillness – Northcoast Antiquarian

Ode to the Deep

Photo by Sebastian Voortman on Pexels.com

I. Stillness Before the Descent
What stirs in silence but the thought of falling?
The soul leans forward at the edge of time,
Where earth gives way to rhythm without measure—
No firmament beneath, no axis left to climb.
The wind is absent here. The light, unsure.
All motion trembles on the breath of stillness.
We speak of peace, yet dread the calmest shore—
For we have built our gods from fear and witness.

II. The Water Below
Not storm, not wave, nor tempest’s hissing swell,
But quiet depth—the fathomless unknown,
Uncoiling silence from a buried bell
Where light has never touched the sea-worn stone.
Here dwell no monsters, save the mind’s own eye.
The fear is not of drowning, but of seeing—
That which reflects not sky, but self, and why
The soul recoils from naked being.

III. The Humbling
The sea does not instruct with word or wind—
It shapes the soul by salt and slow erosion.
A kneeling cliff, worn smooth where waves have pinned
Each boast to sand, each name to dark devotion.
The deeper still you go, the less you hold—
No torch remains, no doctrine, no command.
The deep forgives, but never does it fold—
It presses wonder into trembling hand.

IV. What Remains
So is the fear a gift, once held aright—
A trembling compass on the soul’s long chart.
For he who feared the deep, yet dared its night,
Returns not wise—but hollowed, whole of heart.
He cannot speak of what he saw below,
Only that silence taught him how to kneel.
And those who know will know. The rest may go
To read their truths upon a turning wheel.

On the Nature of Moments

Some time ago—perhaps a year or more—I shared the thought with a friend that, in the absence of a life partner, career milestones, or the outward markers many associate with ongoing joy and fulfillment, I found myself sustained by something smaller, more elusive, yet no less profound: moments. Fleeting as they are, these glimpses—of joy, beauty, tenderness, or connection—carry a weight that lingers long after they pass. Whether in laughter with a friend, a burst of color in nature, the unexpected joy found in art and music, or the hush of shared silence, these moments are what remain.

This conversation was brought to mind earlier today, during a pause in some simple yard work. A robin—one I have come to recognize—perched beside me on a rock for nearly twenty minutes. He did not fly, only hopped, watching me as if we were resting together. That brief companionship, quiet and unexpected, brought back the full force of that earlier insight.

The poem that follows is a first, rough attempt to give shape to that reflection.

Moments

by Donald S. Yarab

After so long,
I see it now—
life is not the grand arc
we thought we were writing,
not triumph etched in time
or years stacked with care.
It is moments.

The held door,
a beat longer than required.
A cloud painting itself
across the sky.
A flower blooming
through a crack in concrete.

The hum of a bee,
the song of a bird,
a friend’s first hello—
welcome, familiar music in the air.
Laughter spilling like light
through a quiet room.

A touch that speaks
without language.
Sunlight flickering
through leaves—
nature’s own Morse code.
The warm drift from the kitchen:
garlic, hope,
onions, memory.

The first bite of something sweet
dissolving on the tongue.
The joy of someone you love
laughing till they snort,
till they can’t breathe,
till you’re laughing too
at nothing,
at everything.

These—
small rebellions
against the world’s weight:
its monotony, its cold indifference.

But the moments—
oh, they persist.
They slip through the cracks
of our hardest days
and remind us
why we stay,
why we watch,
why we dare to hope
for just one more:

one more kindness,
one more beauty,
one more laugh,
one more flicker of light—
each a defiance,
each a benediction
in this brief, bright,
impossible gift
of being alive.

The Sermon on the Stump: Beneath the Rain

The Sermon on the Stump

by Donald S. Yarab

It was raining. The crowd—
too few to be a crowd—perhaps
a gathering, or the assembled,
more ghosts than listeners,
their coats darkened not just by weather
but by the weight of waiting.

He stood on the stump,
not of authority, but of loss—
the remnant of a tree felled long before,
as if the forest had once believed
in clearing room for prophecy.

He spoke not of thunder,
but of hush. Not of redemption,
but of what remained
after the soil forgot its seed.

The gathering, if such it was,
did not cheer, nor weep.
They listened with the rain,
as if the water itself
were translating his broken cadence
into something nearly true.

He spoke not of hope, or loss,
of tomorrow, or yesterday,
or even today.
He named no sins,
offered no absolution,
held no book but the hush
of water sliding down his sleeve.

His voice did not rise.
It pooled.
Like the rain in the hollow of the stump
beneath him.
He said only:
“You have heard the wind.
Now hear the stillness it leaves behind.”

And they did not answer.
Not from doubt,
but because his words were not questions.
They were roots—
groping downward through silence,
seeking something older than belief.

A dog barked in the distance.
A child shifted,
not from boredom,
but from the weight of understanding
too early what it meant to stand still
in a world that keeps spinning.

He stepped down,
the stump left wet,
as if it had wept a little too.

And the assembled, if that is what they were,
dispersed—no closer,
no farther,
but marked.

Some were bewildered.
Others thought they were enlightened,
but knew not how.
Still others could not recall
what he had said,
only that his voice was comforting,
his cadence soothing—
not the lullaby of forgetfulness,
but the murmur of rain on old wood,
reminding them of something
they had never quite known.

No creed was offered.
No call to return.
Yet a few found themselves
walking more slowly afterward,
listening more intently
to trees, to puddles,
to silences that did not demand reply.

And the stump remained—
neither altar nor monument,
but a place where words once settled
like mist
and did not vanish.