Stillness Knows My Name

In a house that hums with life and laughter,
I find silence not in absence, but in choice—
the quiet between my daughter’s questions,
the hush of my wife’s hand brushing mine.

Morning tea sings soft against the mug,
but it’s the space between sips that speaks.
No striving, no proving, just breath.
A moment held gently, like a face I love.

I used to run from quiet, mistook it for loneliness,
tried to fill it with noise, or guilt, or the past.
But silence is not a void—it’s a mirror,
and it showed me a self I once refused to see.

Now I sit with her—this woman I am—
forty-one years of ache and rising,
and I let her be without fixing,
let her breathe without shame.

My peace is not perfect.
It’s a garden I tend daily,
where even weeds are welcome,
as long as I can hear the wind.

I listen, and silence answers.
Not with words, but with knowing—
that I am whole,
and here.

© Susie Stiles-Wolf