#dillard

the Death of the Self of which the great writers speak of is no violent act.

it is merely the joining of the great rock heart of the earth in its roll the slow cessation of the intellect’s chatter the hollow bell with stilled tongue the waiting itself in the killing frost fixed, Mute. Wait—

my brain vibrates: “Our God shall come,” “and shall not keep silence.”

I saw three migrating geese flying low over the frozen duck pond where I stood I heard a heart-stopping blast of speed I felt the flayed air slap at my face they thundered across the pond and back, and back again such speed, such singlemindedness, such flaying of wings they flew, they rang the air, they disappeared i think of this now the blurred bastinado of feathered bone

if you wait silently, in naturalness, emptied, translucent, without expectation and without hope, something pours over you like a waterfall rocks and topples you like a tidal wave it will shear, loose, launch, winnow, grind. it is a reduction, a shedding, a sloughing off.

I stand under this distant silver November sky directly under sere branches of trees, shed naked, pure, without intercessors— this is the Real world, not the world gilded and pearled

You all go on. I’m staying here.