To a fragmented and conflicted world, One Like Silence offers a vision of radical connection, solidarity, and union. It opens with the image of two long-estranged lovers joined, after the death of one, by an unbreakable thread that weaves together all forms in a timeless reality. The spaciousness of this metaphor is realized in the various sections of the book as it celebrates the ecstasy of existence (“Out of the Blackness Ecstatic”), grapples with the alienation engendered by trauma and suffering (“The River of Affirmation and Joy”) and by fear and hate (“Moon in a Muddy Arroyo”), asserts the underlying unity of nature (“Enchanted Rock”), explores the most intimate of relationships as the archetype and ideal of union (“The Ordeal of Marriage”), and finally follows “the path of love beyond love” to claim the oneness manifesting all the diverse expressions in form (“Harmony of Star and Ditch”). Besides proposing a theory of consciousness in sync with perennial wisdom, this collection points the way to peace, wholeness, and the healing of this noisy, broken world. 

Chris Ellery is author of five previous poetry collections, including The Big Mosque of Mercy, Elder Tree, and Canticles of the Body. A member of the Texas Institute of Letters, he has received the X. J. Kennedy Award for Creative Nonfiction, the Dora and Alexander Raynes Prize for Poetry, the Betsy Colquitt Award, and the Texas Poetry Award.

The following nine poems were previously published by Texas Poetry Assignment: “Secret Place,” “Double Feature,” “Cradleboard,” “Making Bread on the Fourth of July” (as “Baking in Quarantine”), “Mandala” (as “Geometric”), “Headwaters,” “Provision,” “Zophar,” and “Daughter Heaven Mountain.”

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