The Surface Hold Its Breath

It begins with a hush so wide

you could walk across it—

a pond before the stone,

skin of the world stretched,

waiting.

***

Light drapes itself over the water,

not falling,

but settling—

as if it, too, has paused to listen

to the breath between thoughts,

to the hush of something just about

to become.

***

There is no wind,

only the promise of wind.

No birdsong,

only the memory of flight

etched in the air.

Trees forget their movement.

Leaves hold their stories tightly.

***

You stand there—

not separate from it,

but stitched into its stillness.

Your shadow does not tremble.

Your breath does not rush.

Even your name feels like a ripple,

a whisper, a hush.

***

And then—

a shimmer.

***

Not sound, not sight—

but a shift,

like an old memory awakening,

without reason.

A flick of light

on the lip of water,

or the ghost of a thought

always waiting to return.

***

It says: this is it.

This is the quiet you circled.

The moment just before

the world admits it has a heart.

Before time exhales,

before the first small break

in surface tension

sends everything expanding.

***

You blink.

The light changes.

***

The hush becomes a murmur.

A breeze brushes the pond’s skin

like a whisper of curtains.

Somewhere, a fin cuts the surface,

brief as breath.

***

But the knowing remains—

held in the soft place

between what stirred

and what stayed still.

***

As if you’ve touched

the underside of something vast

and it blinked.

***

And now,

you'll never again,

call this moment ordinary,

because it descends upon you,

like a blip of a scene that curls

in your hair,

in your toes,

as your breath surfaces on the horizon

and you feel light in your heart,

ready to release the tension inside

the stillness.