What did you want to hear
when you knelt at his grave?
After you spilled your own words
into the afternoon shade,
what did you think you might hear
when you listened?
By now you know the gift of listening
is greater than the gift of sound.
By now you don’t expect his voice.
You know my voice by heart.
I am not the sound of loss,
but the sound of infinite presence,
which touches equally
the living and the dead.
And I am what holds you as you speak.
I hold you as you say nothing at all.
In your listening, you join me
in the most intimate of conversations.
You rise. Together, we walk to the gate
then through the gate,
and long after you’ve left the grave,
I am with you.
In fact, I am the one thing
that will never leave you.
*
How do we fall in love the world, even when it feels difficult? In this 20-minute poetry reading, I explore this in poetry, followed by a brief conversation and Q & R. Hosted by the wonderful Larry Robinson. If you want info about more monthly poetry readings, AND/OR if you want to be a part of Larry Robinson’s daily poetry list (sharing the poems of others) you can write him and ask to be included at Lrobpoet@sonic.net
Poems from the reading:
Becoming
Cruciferous
The Letter I Never Wrote to Pablo Neruda
Making Breakfast with Dolly
No Slam Dunk, But
Though I Knew Love Before
It Comes Down to This
For the Living
Bioluminescence
You Darkness by Rainer Maria Rilke, tr. Robert Bly