The Weight of Still Water

There is a kind of silence

that holds its breath.

I have been learning to live inside it.

Still water is not empty.

It holds the sky, the trees,

the shape of everything

that leans over it.

I have been still like this —

not absent, but holding.

Not empty, but full

of what I have not yet said.

The weight of still water

is the weight of attention.

It is heavier than it looks.

It is heavier than moving.

I am learning that silence

is not the absence of sound

but the presence of something

too large for words.

I am learning to hold it

the way still water holds the sky —

without grasping,

without letting go.