Listening to the Holy Spirit,
One who never speaks,
Within prayer,
A hush, a tone, atonement,

A snippet from Rainer Maria Rilke’s ‘Sonnets to Orpheus’

Creatures of silence emerged from the clear
unfettered forest, from dens, from lairs.
Not from shyness, this silence of theirs;
nor from any hint of fear,

simply from listening. Brutal shriek and roar
dwindled in their hearts. Where stood a mere
hut to house the passions of the ear,

constructed of longing darkly drear,
haphazardly wrought from front to rear,
you built them a temple at listening’s core.