Monday, February 12, 2007

Poems from conference/workshops

When Someone Deeply Listens to You

When someone deeply listens to you

it is like holding out a dented can you have had since childhood

and watching it fill up with cold fresh water.

When it balances on the top of the rim

you’re understood.

When it overflows and touches your skin

you are loved.

When someone deeply listens to you

the room where you stay starts a new life

and the place where you wrote your first poem

begins to blows in your mind’s eye.

It’s as if gold has been discovered.

When someone deeply listens to you

your bare feet are on the earth

and the beloved land that seemed distant

is now at home within you.

-- John Fox

Essentially asks and answers the question, “what do we need from each other?” -- To be heard.

Love After Love

The time will come

when, with elation,

you will greet yourself arriving

at our own door, in your own mirror,

and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again

the stranger who was yourself.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored

for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf

the photographs, the desperate notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life.

-- Derek Walcott

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