by Jeffrey Essmann

I have to somehow get my silence back,
To strike some calibrated equipoise
Between an inner stillness and the noise
That far too easily drives me offtrack.
At times I even fear I’ve lost the knack
For sinking deeply in the silent joys
And purity of being that deploys
My soul on quite a different tack. 
Yet nonetheless I every now and then
A wordless texture suddenly reclaim:
Sensation, but not sensed as such;
Aroma of a memory, no when,
No where: a subtle bliss that can’t be named
And fourteen lines cannot begin to touch. 

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Jeffrey Essmann is an essayist and poet living in New York. His poetry has appeared in numerous magazines and literary journals, among them Dappled Things, Agape Review, the St. Austin Review, U.S. Catholic, Amethyst Review, Modern Reformation, The Society of Classical Poets, and various venues of the Benedictine monastery with which he is an oblate. He was 2nd Place winner in the Catholic Literary Arts 2022 Assumption of Mary poetry contest and 1st Place winner in its Advent: Mary Mother of Hope contest later that year. He is editor of the Catholic Poetry Room page on the Integrated Catholic Life website.