I Didn’t Hear It Then

What does it matter
to the longest stretches of time,
measured in light years,
or by the distances
between the planets and stars,
by granite cooling
after melting
in the center of the earth,
or perhaps by the sudden pop
of a sonic boom
as the force of leaving
explodes in the ear.

What if it doesn’t matter
that the silences
and the groping
on the hard surface of stone,
leaving me bruised and thrilled
with uncertainty tucked
into the spaces in my bones,
was all there ever was
of kindness?

Spiritual focus requires one
of two things:

Faith in what one cannot see
or the awareness of the greatest good
living as light and decibels vibrating
within the cells of each living thing.

When I watch your eyes
in the midst of love
in your hands—
When I see you gather
that life like a bouquet
of summer about to burst
into blossom—
I realize all the universe
I never heard
in the other songs
I have learned.

The August robins are gathering
just as they always do
when the light diminishes the way
we see summer and look
discontentedly at green.

And in the dream threads
I extract from the center
of my heart’s truth after sleeping,
the red-breasted ones
whisper the 10000 ways
to fly
before it is too late
to carry
your soul.