Neutral Madness

I sit in darkness. I sit in human silence. 
I begin to hear the eloquent night.
The world of this night resounds from 
heaven to hell with animal eloquence, 
with the savage innocence of a million
unknown creatures.
The enormous vitality of their music 
pounds and rings and throbs and echoes
until it gets into everything, and swamps
the whole world in its neutral madness.

​-Thomas Merton

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