Something to Consider

Inspired by David Kirby's poem " I Have Not Come Here to Compare Notes But to Sit Together in the Stillness at the Edge of the Wound."

I have nothing to say to you, really.

I just want to see what I'm looking at.

I want so much not to listen...but to hear.

I.
What has happened exactly to bring
me this wild wave of optimism?

Last weekend everything looked
bleak and dark, a non-holiday to
celebrate a non-unified country.

But today -- I see so much sun it is
nearly blinding.

I think for a long time it was hard
to see what I was looking at,
to call it by its true name.

II.
I was taught in third grade that to
listen was a deeper activity than hearing.

Yet, David Kirby turns that on
its head when he says he
doesn't just want to listen, but
to hear.

And I think how I pride myself
on listening, and I teach my
students the same.

Do I teach them to listen?
Or to listen AND hear?

What is my mode of operation?

Something to consider.

III.
Perhaps part of the answer is in
the title of the poem that prompted
this particular piece of writing.

We must be still and sit
at the end of the wound. Allow it
to ooze its message. No one is
exempt from what it has to
teach, reveal, unveil.

We can create noise.
Or we can be still...listen...hear.