listening to nature

I hear the birds and I hear the branches
I hear the vehicles and I hear the leaves
I hear the people, the animals
and the machinery to keep us cool
and still
I seek to understand, to objectify, to name,
to satisfy my mind.

When my mind nudges in
for a turn at the microphone
she reminds me, again,
of past thoughts, past concerns
and future anxieties
I am trying to let fly away with the birds
I cannot see.

I hear these sounds,
I hear the music they orchestrate
but apart from the trees and leaves
I cannot see their sources.

I cannot see their source
and yet they are there,
they still reach my ears
somehow.

They come and go,
bending off and into each other
seamlessly
as if following a score
or being led by a conductor at the podium.
They trust in each other.
I close my eyes, expand my ears,
trusting the sounds will reach me
in nature’s perfection
without a need for rationality or manipulation.

Imagine, just for a moment,
the freedom, the weightlessness,
the joy,
of trusting that life will unfold as it is meant
if we are open enough
to hear it
to receive it
and to accept it.

broken record

The record spins.
Always spinning, it never stops
because it’s broken.

Spinning inside my head, inside my chest,
though at first the music sounds beautiful,
it’s off-key.

Spinning before my eyes
the people, creatures,
juggling balls flying through the air,
everything is moving.

“By trying to control everything
you end up controlling nothing.
Not that you can control anything, anyway.”

The record keeps spinning.
The record keeps playing.
Broken.

desire for new music

Narratives cycling over and over in my head
like records on repeat
continue playing in the background
despite attempts to press stop,
pull the power cord from the wall,
destroy the battery.
The songs keep playing.

My attempts to play a new song, or songs,
of a different genre
are acknowledged, briefly,
but cast aside in preference of the old and familiar.
Why do I do this? How?

I devote my being to this cause,
to make it through one, two, even four songs at a time,
slowly rewiring,
building comfort with new genres,
new artists.

It will take a long time
to sever and rebuild,
but I can see a light shining
on the new music, waiting to be wired into me,
and it’s beautiful.

movie opportunity

After we lose connection
we almost always have the opportunity
to reconnect.
The movies sell us this idea
with dramatic music and obvious build-up
to the main event,
where broken hearts are whole once more.

Life is not like the movies.
We do not hear background music or see dramatic irony
to know when we are on the path
to re-connection.
In times like these,
maybe what we need to listen for
are the silent streets
and seldom-heard sounds within our own homes
to build the movie suspense.
We, right now,
have an opportunity to reconnect with the selves
we have lost in the midst of the non-stop,
chaotic lives that came to a halt,
because of another organism
who finally got its turn in the spotlight.

We can reconnect with ourselves,
the souls we call our own
and the souls of those near and dear.
Before we live in regret
we can repair those broken links
and make our hearts whole, and healed,
again.

This is the opportunity
to take over the script, and dialogue, of our movie.

Will you pick up a pen?

Caught in a trance

Caught in a trance,
hands on the steering wheel
eyes on the road
mind lost in the music.

Lost in the bass
thundering through my static muscles,
lost in the guitar
amplifying my pulsating blood,
lost in the lyrics
shattering and healing my heart at once.

Turn it up loud
so my ears cannot hear my mind
attempting fantasy.

Singing, mimicking,
would be a disservice now.

So here I sit, caught in a trance
seemingly motionless, but hosting a frenzy
on the inside.
Music surges through me
as I open wide the gate
and leaves me with nothing more
than a growing smile on my lips
and radiating calm.