Written in 1987
Streetcar going by.
I remember that song.
“Did I hear you say
You completed the job?”
What made the energy so low in here?
Am I only listening with the ear?
How dull things get when I hear that way.
I think to myself:
“Can’t you say something new?
Something different or true?
Why do you think I don’t listen to you?”
Some of the time I get to be right.
The times when I’m not,
I hide or we fight.
But something is missing in all of this.
Without it we grow apart.
How describe that thing?
A reaching out.
A listening with the heart.
When I listen that way,
She seems glad that I know
How she feels down deep inside.
Not just a listening with the ear,
Where I catch her meaning and drift.
There’s so much more
She seems hungry to say
And won’t without knowing I’m here.
Not caught up in my thoughts,
Or wanting a smoke,
Or ogling the woman next door,
Or wondering why I don’t love her these days
The way I did at the start.
With the heart, I listen in support of her,
In a way that buoys her in life,
In a way that raises the strength in her,
That feeds her and says she’s alright.
I want to hear the all of her,
What lies under and over the words.
The sigh in her voice,
The ebb and the flow,
Her poise when she’s clear and relaxed.
I want to hear the rhythm of her,
Her song, her ballet,
The playing of her.
I want to know the the life of her,
To enter and sit in her home.