Poem: Listening

Image: Listening is Innocence by Anahata Giri

I paint a seashell

white on white

and hold it to my ear

to hear your

ocean.

Did you forget?

Listening is innocence and 

the ear canal,

that delicate spiral,

can caress and corral the air

all the way inside to the deep cave of your 

soul. 

I listen  

to perpetual motion,

the ocean, that

sweeps in seaweed and 

driftwood and

emergent somethings,

precious. 

I stand at the wind-swept cliff-edge.

Assumptions,

illusions, lie smashed below.

Maybe one of the hazards of listening is

vertigo,

the fear of falling

through the space

I have become. 

It’s the gusty salt air

that opens my lungs,

that makes the shell sing,

that turns me to sky

even when I thought I might be the sea.

I tighten my scarf

and wrap myself more snugly

around the tenderness of

the naked ear.