The poet Wendell Berry advises fellow poets to “Make a poem that does not disturb / the silence from which it came. ” The deft, and beautifully written reflections in Mark Jodon’s Miles of Silencemore than fulfill Berry’s exacting dictum.

Here are meditations and reflections at once tender and exacting, drawing from, and speaking into the depths of the soul. The reader will leave these poems enriched and intrigued, and will return to them often, for an even deeper encounter.

—Malcolm Guite, performance poet, priest, singer-songwriter, author of Sounding the Seasons and The Singing BowlMake no mistake: these are not all easy poems. There is, as promised, silence.

The silence of darkness, the silence of death, the silence of sorrow and what can’t be said. And yet—as also promised—there are miles.

There is a wandering along a way. It comes with glances, missteps, light-glints, and stones.

And: it comes with the constant companionship of the one who speaks into the silence. The one who reminds us we are never lost, never alone.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, in the company of these poems, we believe. —Claire Miller Colombo, Assistant Professor of Writing, Theology, and the Arts and Director of the Center for Writing and the Arts at Seminary of the Southwest, editor of Soul by SouthwestIn his song “Anthem,” Leonard Cohen notes “there’s a crack in everything / that’s how the light gets in.

” Mark Jodon is a poet of the fissures and frailties of life and love, and light pours forth from this beautiful collection. “Teach me the song / I will sing my whole life,” Jodon writes in his poem “Anthem.

” Miles of Silence records a lifetime of travels and lessons, aches and awe. “Every breath is a creation story,” Jodon says, and I am grateful for the holy scriptures contained in these pages.

—Jason Myers, poet, priest, editor-in-chief of Eco-Theo Review, author of Maker of Heaven &. .