Calling Me

He told me one day that if I stood in the quietness that comes in the evening when the wind has dropped and the sun has warmed the earth, and if I listened, I would hear the whispers.

I listened in the evenings during the day’s silence. I listened in the morning hush before the sun climbed over the fence to touch the roses. I heard the silence in rooms empty of people and sheltered from the noise of cars. It filled me with exquisite peace, sometimes bringing tears to my eyes. But I heard no whispers. No voice spoke to me telling its secrets. I saw the humming birds suck the juice from the lemon blossoms. I watched it fly before the scarlet flowers of the fuchsias, and was bathed in its quiet loveliness. But I heard no voice.

Then, while eating with you in that dusty side street, the silence came upon me as waves, floating me up and breaking the moorings that held me fast to the old harbour, to security and the known. And as I was broken free by that grace, I heard the whispers. That soft and laughing voice called me by name. ‘Come! Come,’ it said, with great joy. And I rose to my feet, ready to follow, before the waves of silence washed over me and were gone. My heart held close to those words, knowing I had been called to loose the bonds that held me and follow what called beyond the known, beyond the safe predictable life.

And I stepped out into that dusty road to follow the call. My old life fell away as I opened new and untried wings to fly after that laughing voice.

Copyright ©2008 Tony Crisp