The Art of Emptiness

This is what I do sometimes.
Sit. And stare into space, stare
into time, stock still, as if any movement
might disturb the fabric of the universe.

Ask me what I am doing and I will be truthful.
“Nothing.”. I am not seeing. Not thinking.
I am practicing the art of emptiness.
allowing the world to disappear.

Not willing it to disappear, allowing it
to fade, as if in a kiss from a lover.
Or at least, from the right lover,
at the right time, when all is

connection and timelessness.

No one believes the nothingness.
It is not the province of active minds,
much less the overactive minds
our stressworld creates, insists on,

The flickerflash of a world too full,
too loud, too busy. In that world
there is no place for a person like me,
striving, seeking, emptiness,

trusting God to do the filling
in his own time,
in his own way,
while I sit, staring into space,

an artist waiting
for the next muse to show itself
not in noise,
but in silence

About this poem

I stare into space a lot.

The picture was taken in a sculpture garden in Washington DC. Unfortunately, I have lost the tag that says who did it and what it is called.

Tom