You would think only my ears went for a walk,
because all I could focus on this morning was
the constant putter and drone and rumble and whine
of the steady stream of cars on the highway below.
My ears were bothered. Mightily so. Bothered
enough they drowned out the woodsy scent
of spruce and the dry earth perfume of late summer
so I could focus on a backfiring engine.
Bothered enough I had to force myself to notice
how soft the trail was underfoot, how easy it felt
to stroll on the flat surface. Had to force myself
to see how some leaves in the understory were
already turning red, how beautiful they were,
how good the warm sun felt on the bare skin
of my arms, how a crisp breeze made
my arms rise as if in praise to receive a brief
and welcome chill. Surrounded by so much
beauty, it’s a wonder I could be fussy at all,
but wow, was I fussy as those cars roared by
and I dreamed of a different, better trail where
I wanted to be right then, some other trail where
I heard only birds or wind or blessed nothing.
Hours later, sitting on the couch, it’s obvious
what I heard loudest was not traffic, but my own
fussy thoughts as I longed the world to be different
than it was. By some grace, a sweet self-compassion
floods me, quiets me, stills and softens me,
helps me befriend myself just as I am, a human
who is sometimes fussy, sometimes compassionate.
For a grounded moment, I am so content I think
a whole highway could thunder right through me,
and I might just be okay.
Posts Tagged ‘sound’
The World Made Possible
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fussiness, hike, misophonia, self compassion, sound, traffic on August 30, 2026| 5 Comments »
The Arrangement
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bouquet, garden, grandmother, sound on March 30, 2026| 8 Comments »
Because touch is one way we offer praise,
this morning I touch my ears
to the see-sawing song of birds
in the tree beside me. I still myself
to focus on their song, and they stop
singing, as if to tease. I touch my ears
to the silence where the song is not.
Touch the warm tones of wind chimes
stirred by a breeze I barely feel.
Touch the hum of the cars
and the growl of a motorcycle I’d rather
shut out. I think of how my grandmother
used grass, even weeds in her flower arrangements.
She taught me you could make anything beautiful.
I try to stop slandering the traffic noise
and gather it into an audible bouquet complete
with birds, chimes, silence, my breath.
How to make the unwelcome welcome?
How to hold tension in ways that compliment?
All morning, all day, I practice opening
to what isn’t easy to love. I make a vase
of the moment. Add all the sound that’s here.
So much I’d rather not to listen to.
I think of my grandmother. I try to find
new ways to hear.
Sound Bath
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, present, sound, sound wave on November 1, 2025| 12 Comments »
Even now, imagine, we could step through
one of the infinite doors of the moment
and find ourselves in another life—
repairing a net on the banks of a vast river
or herding cattle down a two-lane highway.
Standing in line a block from a soup kitchen
or guarding the entrance to the Forbidden City.
Instead, we are here in the lives we inhabit
But press your ear to the other doors. Hear
the traffic. The sobbing. A swelling of symphony.
Gunshot. Thunder of feet. The whimper of an infant.
The world enters us in waves, waves that seep
through the doors and we wade in them.
Wading, we come to know there is no way
to not be touched by every other life,
no matter how distant. If you put your ear
to the moment, sometimes you can hear
every other ear listening for what you will do next.
Creatures, All
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged animal, body, delight, humanness, prayer, sound on August 18, 2025| 6 Comments »
I love the small sounds of pleasure
people make when taking the first
sip of coffee, or when sitting, at last,
after standing for hours. That soft
hum of delight that escapes the lips
when someone presses a thumb
into the arch of our foot and makes
small circles on the sole. That sigh
that flies out when we step into shade
on a relentlessly sunny day. Bless these
moments when the mind can’t outbrain
the animal living inside us, when
our untamed self slips through the cage
of decorum and groans or purrs
or moans or gasps and reminds us
that beneath all our fancy syntax
and pretty words, we’re creatures.
Every triumphant roar and ecstatic howl
is proof of our common primitive tongue.
Fluent in human, we praise in squeals,
blissful giggles, grateful throaty grunts.
One After the Sauna
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged angel, cold, sauna, snow, sound on January 11, 2024| 13 Comments »
in deep, new snow
a naked angel makes wings—
her song, how it soars
On Prayer
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged prayer, silence, sound, wayne muller on February 19, 2023| 12 Comments »
for Mark Primavesi
Prayer is what happens when we listen, and wait, beneath words, for the outline of heaven and earth to emerge.
—Wayne Muller, “Nourished by Prayer”
Today prayer is the silence
in the snow-deep meadow.
It’s the gurgle of the ice-choked river
that cannot be heard unless
I am completely still. Today,
prayer is not to, it’s not for,
it’s something I am
more than something I do.
Prayer is even the sound
of the logging trucks on the highway
as they brake rounding the corner.
It’s the rapid shush, shush, shush
of my skis in the track as I climb the hill.
It’s the sizzle of onions in the oil.
It’s the hitch in my breath before I cry.
I’m astonished, today, to find
there is nothing that isn’t prayer
when I am aware it’s an invitation
to be completely here, to open;
it’s a call to meet it all
with the love that asks nothing from me
except that I give it and receive it.
Every single thing can be prayer.
Even the siren blaring by.
Even my own familiar voice
as I listen into the silences
for whatever words come next.
Ode to the Echo
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged echo, ode, silence, sound on November 4, 2022| 10 Comments »
Sister of silence, you give back to the world
the shadow of every sound you are given.
You reshape the air to unsharpen the shout.
You unshrill the scream until it’s quieter,
quieter,
then nothing at all.
There is no sound so harsh you can’t soften it.
And come song? You re-sing the melody
so beauty will linger like the rich shimmer inside a gong.
Not once have you said your own words.
Not once have you intoned your own tune.
Not once have you heard your own voice
or spoken your own truth.
Not once have you lied.
Not once have you made a promise
you could not keep.
Sometimes, when I am brave,
I try to echo you, which is to say
I let silence enter my inner walls,
where it bounces in me like sound in a cave
until all I hear is the resonant repeat
of the most ancient of languages you speak—
silence, silence, silence.
There is no part of me uneroded,
no part your waves don’t touch.
One Rev
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bee, highway, sermon, sound on June 2, 2021| 1 Comment »
roar of the highway
beside it in an evening primrose
a bee, thunderous
Butterfly Effect
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged butterfly effect, chaos theory, sound on April 19, 2021| Leave a Comment »
At first I hear only the fan.
The hum of the fridge.
The whine of a faraway motor.
I wait. I listen a long time
until I hear the slightest silence
from thirty years ago
when that butterfly wing in China
didn’t flap and so the weather didn’t change
and so until this moment,
the woman today didn’t know
that she was missing so much laughter
thirty years ago.
Listening to the Wind on Mars, I Consider the Unsaid
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged communication, mars, silence, sound, wind on February 23, 2021| 3 Comments »
Just because I can’t hear the wind on Mars
without the sound being raised two octaves
doesn’t mean the Martian wind wouldn’t open a sail—
doesn’t mean it wouldn’t blow off my hat
or fly my kite or create thick swirls of red dust.
Just because I could barely hear the wind on Mars
with my human ears doesn’t mean
the wind wouldn’t flip up my skirt. So many forces
just beyond our senses have powerful effect—
like the words that just today I didn’t hear you say,
yet I know by the way my skin shivers they’re true.
I know, just as sure as the wind blows on Mars,
it takes just one gust to make a thousand seeds go flying.
And I am a weed with ten thousand seeds.
And those words I didn’t hear today, they’re the wind.
New Soundtrack
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged improvisation, music, singing, song, sound, spontaneity on May 18, 2020| Leave a Comment »
All day the world improvises
a song for me—song of bickering robins
and whispering grass, bright chime
of a text and gravel trucks that grumble
on the highway as they pass.
The song I would sing for you, let it be
as spontaneous as the chattering
of the cat watching hummingbirds,
as sharp as the flap of the flag in the wind.
Let me not sing the same song I’ve sung before.
This is the time to sing it new, to sing
the song we didn’t know we were brave enough
to sing. This is the time to sing
the most honest song, thorn song,
green song, yelp of relentless shine.
This is the time to sing as if our lives
depend on it, sing the song
that comes out of attending.
Song of pushing through dirt.
Song we don’t know yet.
Anthem
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged loss, music, sound on May 9, 2020| 12 Comments »
Today’s anthem is not
my chorus of curses
when the cat knocked
the glass of sauvignon blanc
into my open laptop.
It’s not the clashing swords
in the movie we watched
nor the sobbing
that shook me this morning
when I tried to speak of loss.
The anthem is not
the click of the door
nor the snap of the branch
beneath the Stellar’s jay
nor the soundless slide
of the moon.
Today’s anthem was the hum
I know you would have made
if you’d held me while I wept,
the waves of our breath
inviting us to wade
deeper in.
Conversation at the Silent Retreat
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, distraction, poem, poetry, silence, sound on March 17, 2019| 5 Comments »
Apparently no one told the tickle in my throat
that this was a silent retreat.
All it wanted to do was explore the sound
of throat clearing, the sound of cough.
All around me the sound of nothing
but breathing and sitting, but in me,
this tickle saying Notice me, Notice me.
Here I am and what will you do about it?
I told the tickle, If I were freeclimbing,
I would ignore you. My life would depend on it.
The tickle said, but you’re here,
here in a quiet room, and your life is at stake
in a much different way. What are you willing
to notice? What do you wish away?
Isn’t this just one more way you tell yourself
life would be better if it were different?
One Redirection
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged attention, bird, crow, noise, poem, poetry, silence, sound on January 14, 2019| Leave a Comment »
One Palette
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, silence, ski, snow, sound on January 14, 2019| Leave a Comment »
shush of skis, sharp heave
of breath, wild red thump of heart—
silent trees, silent snow
Lauds
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged first day of school, morning, poem, poetry, sound on August 28, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Before the sun rises the first day of school
the only sounds in the house are the fish tanks
as it bubbles, the rush of the river outside the window,
and the soft motor of the cat as she makes biscuits on my lap.
Even the kitchen is quiet, save the intermittent hum
of the fridge. All day, I will try to remember this,
how quiet it is, how full of peace, a great score
on which any note can be written.