Listening Beyond Noise


Contemporary Time chooses to whisper,
Having endured shouting decades,
Where a species’ feigned listening,
Opting instead for obsessive noise-making.

Still persistent is but a parade,
A just married tin can raucous
Tied to mankind's bumper.

How tenuous one’s duration.

Yesterday…

Sitting inside Time's tree house,
This place of early discoveries,
Where do and don't became but chaff-covered kernels
A slow growing wisdom first heard
Through Daddy’s cheap wine curiosity
Slowly washed away innocence,
Introducing adult fantasies
Through the malaise of unknown tomorrows.

Synchronously, tiny sparrows
Nesting in branches above
Chirped their own hunger pangs,
Awaiting mother and worm.

Below, a squirrel foraging acorns paused,
Looked up and listened to the Now of Nature’s family,
Savored sounds of his own way and means.

Today…

Time awaits the next moment.

As far as the eye can see,
Old roof tops recede,
Conifers hold firm their rightful place
Hosting fowl and predator alike,
Remaining ready to engage the next of reality’s misdeeds,
Endless out-of-control concussion of erosive man,
While the planet's natural system digs in for another encounter.

In duration’s not-too-distant future,
Man’s earth destroying roar
Will hopefully stumble and be swallowed
By the unsullied trees,
Rocks,
And life-consciousness,
Allowing the essence of identity's in-exhaustive patience
To be heard.

Dare listen…

Some will hear desperate existence whisper
The harmonious nocturnes of everything that is,
Even as ignorance and resistance
Remains forever tone deaf.