Much of a monk's life is spent in silence. Much of a poet's life is spent in silence, too -- a poet spends a fraction of his time actually writing poems. Merton was both a monk and a poet, and thus well-acquainted with silence. Like meditation, and like prayer, poetry is surrounded by silence. Poetry begins and ends in silence. Silence is also inherent within a poem, like the silences between notes in music. As the great Chinese poet Yang Wan-li said, a thousand years ago, "A poem is made of words, yes, but take away the words and the poem remains."
This was taken from an article titled, The monk/poet's journey toward silence, by Frederick Smock. It was written on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Thomas Merton's death, and published in the The Courier-Journal a US newspaper.
