A Human Poem

If you are a hearing person,
What you notice about quiet
Are the numerous minor sounds.

If you’re lucky enough to find
Yourself listening out of doors,
Which is a privilege, unearned,

In the nature of privilege,
The combination of a creek
And a breeze shivering aspens,

A few wrens in their own cosmos,
Will remind you that it’s quiet,
The way stars signify darkness.

You’re such a bizarre awareness
That can’t sense its senses unless
It’s not paying close attention,

Doesn’t need to pay attention
To anything you need to live.
Or maybe that’s how everything

That doesn’t need mind to survive
Survives, not bizarre in the least,
The ordinary world that was

Before we called your attention
To it, pointless world, meaningless
Since meaning begins in pointing,

As we just pointed out rock wrens,
That creek, and bright aspens, useless
Waves coming from a human poem.