A Single Silence

Snow rests on fire

without argument.

The monk sits—

not before the mountain,

not beneath the sky—

but nowhere at all.

Mist moves through pine and breath,

through robe and stone,

through what is seen

and what is seeing.

The volcano does not rise.

The monk does not stand.

Cold drifts into stillness,

stillness into form,

form into nothing

that can be held apart.

A single silence

wears many shapes—

snow, tree, man, mountain—

and calls none of them

by name.