Silence

This is not the silence of endings,
not the silence of death’s hollow hand.
No, it is my silence,
the silence of my own seeds,
hidden beneath the earth,
breaking open in the dark.

I pause here,
as if the world has held its breath with me,
as if it, too, waits for the soft light of dawn
to unfasten its golden robe.

I do not fear it.
This silence is a lover’s touch,
brushing away the noise of my yesterdays,
making room for the tenderness of what’s to come.

It is not emptiness I feel,
but fullness –
a space within me that dreams,
that stretches its hands toward something unseen,
something yet to arrive,
something more beautiful.

I sit in it,
I let it flow through me
like a quiet river,
its waters healing the places
I thought would never mend.

This silence is mine –
not an absence,
but a beginning.