Category: Poem a Month

To listen is to dethrone the surface mind,
be led by
the silky hushes of sky
thrumming of roots
the blood, the sounds of blood
crows
the wings and tears inside words
the subterranean mind.

Listening delivers us
to the vastness
at the core of everything.

To listen is to love.

When I don’t listen to you,
I see you become hollow, lonely.
I hear anger steaming
inside every word
and in the spaces between.

We have listening wounds.
We were dismissed.
It’s not our fault.
We need to scream about it.
Listen to your wounds.
Listening graces the scars.

Listen to how your words close
when you are bitter.

Listen to what’s behind
the fortress of thoughts.

To listen is to bless.

Listen to the other
until there is no other.

I am drawn to people
who hear quiet things.

The mountain wants us to listen
the way she does.

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Questions for Contemplation

How do you see yourself as a listener? What are your strengths and gifts? Are there any ways that you’d like to enhance your listening?

Do you have listening wounds from your past? Were you, for example, criticized, judged, dismissed, or ignored by any family members, friends, teachers, or others? How has that impacted you? What do these wounds need from you now?

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Consider everything a vast invitation.
Open wide to the unseen.
Look with mountain eyes.
Cease worshiping ordinary time.

Relax your grip.
Forget about safe routes.
Crawl into dark holes and wet tunnels.
Let yourself be scared.
Get lost.
Be found.

Let your lineage of ache teach you
and find its way to the page.
Let your lineage of wisdom teach you
and find its way to the page.

Don’t believe the urgency.
Walk.  Pause often.  See with your feet.
Celebrate what is still thriving on this planet.
Praise.
Praise often.

Listen to the pen.
Forget who you thought it belonged to.
Fall off the page.

Place yourself on the precipice of humanity.
Write what you wish you hadn’t seen.

Let storms reconfigure you.
Write the before and after.

Risk expressing what’s hidden
inside the folds of your life.
Invite words to bleed
and breathe onto the page.

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Questions for Contemplation

1.  Which lines or stanzas of the poem
speak to you the most right now? Choose one and reflect on it for a while. What is evoked in you?

2. Where in your life do you often choose safety rather than take risks? What keeps you from taking more risks?

3. When has a challenging situation or event catalyzed significant transformation in your life? In what ways have you been changed by this?

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