Listening With My Heart

 

I grow more silent with every year that passes.
I listen with my heart.
I have spoken so many heedless words,
and no one listens anyway,
for what we are all listening for
is truth
and one has to grow old
to learn to speak it.

The pains of life are sharper now
but easier to bear.
One brushes off the small hurts;
one tolerates the larger pain,
knowing, like every single thing,
that it will pass.

I'm simply burning old masks.
Nothing to hide, no energy
for anything but what is real,
and here, and now.
Let it all go,
all that angst and cacophony.
How can inner woes compete
with a world collapsing
into chaos?

All year round, the trees and birds instruct.
They must wonder at our inability
to hear.

Inspired by a wonderful poem by Mark Nepo, "Crossing Some Ocean In Myself". The italicized lines are his. A Wild Writing exercise.