It Has Always Been A Happy Thought

Like Everyone In His Right Mind, I Feared Santa Claus.

I Used To Have A Cat, An Old Fighting Tom, Who Would Jump Through The Open Window By My Bed In The Middle Of The Night And Land On My Chest. I'd Half-awaken. He'd Stick His Skull Under My Nose And Purr, Stinking Of Urine And Blood. Some Nights He Kneaded My Bare Chest With His Front Paws, Powerfully, Arching His Back, As If Sharpening His Claws, Or Pummeling A Mother For Milk. And Some Mornings I'd Wake In Daylight To Find My Body Covered With Paw Prints In Blood; I Looked As Though I'd Been Painted With Roses.

Crystals Grew Inside Rock Like Arithmetic Flowers. They Lengthened And Spread, Added Plane To Plane In An Awed And Perfect Obedience To An Absolute Geometry That Even Stones - Maybe Only The Stones - Understood.

The Silence Is All There Is. It Is The Alpha And The Omega, It Is God's Brooding Over The Face Of The Waters; It Is The Blinded Note Of The Ten Thousand Things, The Whine Of Wings. You Take A Step In The Right Direction To Pray To This Silence, And Even To Address The Prayer To "world." Distinctions Blur. Quit Your Tents. Pray Without Ceasing.

Whenever There Is Stillness There Is The Still Small Voice, God's Speaking From The Whirlwind, Nature's Old Song, And Dance.