There’s lonely listening, when
sitting in a crowd. Open listening
as one listens, eyes closed,
to the wind in the cottonwood leaves.
Numb listening, as one listens
to detergent commercials.
Baffled listening, as one
tries to discern if the speaker could
possibly believe what they say.
And full-body listening as
the cello plays. Sometimes,
I’ve felt my whole being break
with delight in joyful listening
to my daughter’s laughter.
And break equally
with the unbearable listening
as the soil falls on the casket.
There’s the holy listening
when we listen for the dead,
and greedy listening,
in which every other utterance
is merely a ladder rung
for stepping into your own story.
Selfless listening knows only to receive.
There’s the way you sometimes listen to me,
as if my words are waves on the river,
not something to interpret,
but something familiar.
And the way you sometimes listen
to my silence and know precisely
what I mean. There’s nervous listening,
as one listens to the mouse in the wall.
And vast listening, like when on a clear night
lit only by stars, I can almost sense
how the universe not only sings
through my body, but listens, too,
listens to itself, and knows itself
in the listening.
after reading “As One Listens to the Rain” by Octavio Paz and “Speaking and Language” by Paul Goodman