A Time of Day

There must be a time of day when the man who makes plans 
forgets his plans, and acts as if he had no plans at all. 

There must be a time of day 
when the man who has to speak falls very silent.
and his mind forms no more propositions,
and he asks himself: Did they have a meaning?

There must be a time when the man of prayer goes to pray
as if it were the first time in his life
he has ever prayed, 
when the man of resolutions puts his resolutions aside
as if they had all been broken,
and he learns a different wisdom: 

distinguishing the sun from the moon,
the stars from the darkness,
the sea from the dry land,
and the night sky from the shoulder of a hill. 


Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island