THE QUIET CHILD

"I am a star," said the quiet child -- the one pensive and solitary, who grows himself a garden underneath the stair. It was no surprise that the clouds brought him water and the birds seeds from foreign lands. It was no surprise. A great surprise were the tears that kept falling despite the smile on his lips. Tiny crystals flowing down his little round cheeks. One quietly following the other. Every day. Every night.

He was a sweet child, full of dreaminess and peaceful contemplation. His friends were the flowers and the mice of the field and the butterflies and the other creatures that made a home in his little garden. He had a wheelbarrow and a watering can. He filled the patches of dryness with sweet earth and watered with clean fresh rain.  He came to his garden every day, and its creatures always delighted at the sight of him. He was a soldier of Spirit. A gentle soul that marched to the sound of a hidden rhythm. 

He was a child of the Universe. He knew he was a child of the Universe. He listened to the hum of harmony within himself. He listened to nothing else. He heard it in others although they didn’t hear it in themselves. He was ever vigilant and ever present to the sounds his heart would make, silently passing by the clatter of the day the world would make. 

He was quiet in this way. And he was strong. He held to great kindness and when he put up a little fence around his garden it was with love and patient understanding. His neighbors were unaware of the strength of their chatter and the size of their feet. He found it best to keep to himself and what was his own out of reach. It had taken him a while to learn this – but when he did, it was with thanksgiving and peace of mind. His heart remained open and his mind willing as he kept his garden gate  firmly closed. No one seemed to mind. No one seemed to recognize that the little scrap of land underneath the stair was a garden. And certainly it was too small to care about. Nothing so small and so hidden could mean anything. So they walked by. And so they never knew.

Words & Pictures © by Arlene Graston
All Rights Reserved