can you hold the beauty so gently that
she Danes to unfold in your hands can
you kiss the night air so sweetly that
she begins to blush at the moon for a
moment lifts her cheek and laughs at the
dark
what helps you hold the beauty in this
way what opens you into the listening of
the heart the senses the imagination
what are your preferred pathways into
presence for me one of my favorites is
poetry and I’m looking forward to
adventuring with you all for the next
little while into the world of listening
like a poet and I want to invite you to
forget everything you learned in English
class we’re not gonna analyze the poem
to death but I also want to invite you
into your sensing body ends of the
listening of the heart and the belly the
breath and the feet on the earth see for
me poetry the poet hat is really a
permission slip to listen to the world
as if everything is vibrantly achingly
alive full of wonder magic messages
mystery and when I listen in this way I
notice things I would have otherwise
missed and I want to share a poem called
synesthesia which is the word for when
your sense wires get crossed and
sometimes I find myself listening so
deeply that my son Squires get crossed
outside of my personal body and this one
happened in an orchard in the moonlight
moonlight in the orchard and the arms of
the fruit bears bask in her grace
letting go for the night of their
hardened gnarling they open stomata and
cambria throats as a bright coral hum
fills the Gravenstein air with
appraising so sweet it makes waves of
light that then tickle the wildflowers
wiggling below as they waft their own
loving on notes for the nose and I find
myself bending and offering breath from
the moon in my vibrating nectar filled
chest as we bask in the radiance of
reflection
so where is the poem where did that poem
happen was it in the orchard was it in
my mind perceiving or perhaps somewhere
in between was it on the page when I
went home to translate the experience
into words is a poem here right now
still lingering between us I want you to
imagine with me a glass case full of
dead butterflies and if you’ve ever been
to a Natural History Museum you know
what I mean you walk into a room usually
very brightly lit with white walls and
there’s a case in front of you and
butterflies one by one meticulously
pinned to the case equidistant from each
other usually in some sort of rainbow
order so that we might peer over and
scrutinize nature’s design and it’s a
beautiful thing and I can get lost for
hours doing that and for me this is a
lot like the poem on the page now
imagine with me were in some sort of
Fantasia or waking life movie and the
butterflies resurrect and break free of
the glass and the walls of the museum
fall away and we find ourselves standing
in a meadow with a warm sunlight on our
skin and a cool breeze and a cloud of
butterflies all around us this is the
poetry the movement of love and for a
poet the poems are not just in the
orchards and the meadows they’re
everywhere I like to hunt for poems in
the backwoods of the city where they
hide inside the sidewalk signs the
misfit trees mile at a foam they can
even fly in a billboard sky or swim in
the swamps of my Inbox
and biography is fantastic camouflage a
name a job a place to go they all help
avert suspicious eyes as I wander around
ears perked for the sound of the poems
paws and clacking claws touching grass
on the cracks in the pavement Naomi
Shihab Nye says that poems hide what we
have to do is live in a way that lets us
find them and another benefit of this
listening like a poet is that is an
antidote to isolation socially from the
natural world and from ourselves David
White says in his poem everything is
waiting for you your great mistake is to
act the drama as if you were alone to
feel abandoned is to deny the intimacy
of your surroundings put down the weight
of your aloneness and ease into the
conversation the kettle is singing even
as it pours you a drink the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last
[Music]
the birds and the creatures of the world
are unutterably themselves everything is
waiting for you so I’m hearing a lot of
mm-hmm-hmm so why don’t we do this all
the time
why don’t I listen like a poet all the
time and beyond the usual busy busy work
lots of things to do I think more deeply
it’s because it takes courage it takes
courage to slow down enough to listen
this deeply and in this slowing down and
listening we are also opening ourselves
to the tenderness of the feeling world
of how the feeling can impact us and
percolate through like a drip coffee
waking us up perhaps even changing us
Mary Oliver has this beautiful poem
called invitation she says oh do you
have a little while out of your busy and
very important day for the gold finches
who have gathered in a field of thistle
they sing melodiously not for your sake
and not for mine not for the sake of
winning but for sheer delight and
gratitude believe us they say it is a
serious thing just to be alive on this
fresh morning in this broken world
and the third courage required for
listening like a poet is for many of us
I think the hardest one and that is the
courage to in the wake of the impact
when we feel that spark in the center of
our being and an impulse to respond to
respond to sing back in our own way to
not hold that impulse back for fear of
what it might mean about who we are for
fear of being judged and all the reasons
we tend to clam up around our own
expression and I believe listening in
this way is a transformative Act
Einstein said that you can’t solve a
problem from the same consciousness that
created it well I’d venture to say that
listening like a poet offers another way
a different kind of consciousness and
that the world desperately needs all of
our listening so I’d like to close with
one of my own poems that offers a good
example of how the practice of listening
like a poet can serve to invite us back
into this courageous place and this
story I was commuting through San
Francisco in my own busy busy work work
mode and a blind man walked up to me at
the corner of 16th omission and he asked
me to help him find Wells Fargo and I
looked up and three of the four Street
corners were banks and the fourth was a
McDonald’s so I pointed him to the Wells
Fargo and he thanked me very simply and
went on his way
and something about this moment touched
me so deeply that it opened me back into
the poem with a capital P for the rest
of the day
and I went about noticing the life
moving through the world and I came home
my heart bubbling over with the joy of
aliveness and I did the only thing left
to do which was my way I wrote it down
and so this is called everyday
conversations there is a grace that
rests in the underneath of things and it
peeks out in the shine of the maple
outside in her autumn conversing with
Sun and in the way the girl on the
sidewalk laughs at the life growing wild
through the pavement and it’s hidden
within the blind man’s question as he
makes his way through these harsh urban
streets to pause at the corner of his
ATM or still he must ask me which one
it’s a sermon at 16th and mission as
this man sees with senses most unknown
to us and it touches the heart with a
humble reminder to never get too big for
questions and as we wind our way through
the wilds of this world with our great
courage big dreams hard-earned skill may
we remember to pause and to ask and to
listen and to laugh with the cracks in
the pavement
thank you
[Applause]
she Danes to unfold in your hands can
you kiss the night air so sweetly that
she begins to blush at the moon for a
moment lifts her cheek and laughs at the
dark
what helps you hold the beauty in this
way what opens you into the listening of
the heart the senses the imagination
what are your preferred pathways into
presence for me one of my favorites is
poetry and I’m looking forward to
adventuring with you all for the next
little while into the world of listening
like a poet and I want to invite you to
forget everything you learned in English
class we’re not gonna analyze the poem
to death but I also want to invite you
into your sensing body ends of the
listening of the heart and the belly the
breath and the feet on the earth see for
me poetry the poet hat is really a
permission slip to listen to the world
as if everything is vibrantly achingly
alive full of wonder magic messages
mystery and when I listen in this way I
notice things I would have otherwise
missed and I want to share a poem called
synesthesia which is the word for when
your sense wires get crossed and
sometimes I find myself listening so
deeply that my son Squires get crossed
outside of my personal body and this one
happened in an orchard in the moonlight
moonlight in the orchard and the arms of
the fruit bears bask in her grace
letting go for the night of their
hardened gnarling they open stomata and
cambria throats as a bright coral hum
fills the Gravenstein air with
appraising so sweet it makes waves of
light that then tickle the wildflowers
wiggling below as they waft their own
loving on notes for the nose and I find
myself bending and offering breath from
the moon in my vibrating nectar filled
chest as we bask in the radiance of
reflection
so where is the poem where did that poem
happen was it in the orchard was it in
my mind perceiving or perhaps somewhere
in between was it on the page when I
went home to translate the experience
into words is a poem here right now
still lingering between us I want you to
imagine with me a glass case full of
dead butterflies and if you’ve ever been
to a Natural History Museum you know
what I mean you walk into a room usually
very brightly lit with white walls and
there’s a case in front of you and
butterflies one by one meticulously
pinned to the case equidistant from each
other usually in some sort of rainbow
order so that we might peer over and
scrutinize nature’s design and it’s a
beautiful thing and I can get lost for
hours doing that and for me this is a
lot like the poem on the page now
imagine with me were in some sort of
Fantasia or waking life movie and the
butterflies resurrect and break free of
the glass and the walls of the museum
fall away and we find ourselves standing
in a meadow with a warm sunlight on our
skin and a cool breeze and a cloud of
butterflies all around us this is the
poetry the movement of love and for a
poet the poems are not just in the
orchards and the meadows they’re
everywhere I like to hunt for poems in
the backwoods of the city where they
hide inside the sidewalk signs the
misfit trees mile at a foam they can
even fly in a billboard sky or swim in
the swamps of my Inbox
and biography is fantastic camouflage a
name a job a place to go they all help
avert suspicious eyes as I wander around
ears perked for the sound of the poems
paws and clacking claws touching grass
on the cracks in the pavement Naomi
Shihab Nye says that poems hide what we
have to do is live in a way that lets us
find them and another benefit of this
listening like a poet is that is an
antidote to isolation socially from the
natural world and from ourselves David
White says in his poem everything is
waiting for you your great mistake is to
act the drama as if you were alone to
feel abandoned is to deny the intimacy
of your surroundings put down the weight
of your aloneness and ease into the
conversation the kettle is singing even
as it pours you a drink the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last
[Music]
the birds and the creatures of the world
are unutterably themselves everything is
waiting for you so I’m hearing a lot of
mm-hmm-hmm so why don’t we do this all
the time
why don’t I listen like a poet all the
time and beyond the usual busy busy work
lots of things to do I think more deeply
it’s because it takes courage it takes
courage to slow down enough to listen
this deeply and in this slowing down and
listening we are also opening ourselves
to the tenderness of the feeling world
of how the feeling can impact us and
percolate through like a drip coffee
waking us up perhaps even changing us
Mary Oliver has this beautiful poem
called invitation she says oh do you
have a little while out of your busy and
very important day for the gold finches
who have gathered in a field of thistle
they sing melodiously not for your sake
and not for mine not for the sake of
winning but for sheer delight and
gratitude believe us they say it is a
serious thing just to be alive on this
fresh morning in this broken world
and the third courage required for
listening like a poet is for many of us
I think the hardest one and that is the
courage to in the wake of the impact
when we feel that spark in the center of
our being and an impulse to respond to
respond to sing back in our own way to
not hold that impulse back for fear of
what it might mean about who we are for
fear of being judged and all the reasons
we tend to clam up around our own
expression and I believe listening in
this way is a transformative Act
Einstein said that you can’t solve a
problem from the same consciousness that
created it well I’d venture to say that
listening like a poet offers another way
a different kind of consciousness and
that the world desperately needs all of
our listening so I’d like to close with
one of my own poems that offers a good
example of how the practice of listening
like a poet can serve to invite us back
into this courageous place and this
story I was commuting through San
Francisco in my own busy busy work work
mode and a blind man walked up to me at
the corner of 16th omission and he asked
me to help him find Wells Fargo and I
looked up and three of the four Street
corners were banks and the fourth was a
McDonald’s so I pointed him to the Wells
Fargo and he thanked me very simply and
went on his way
and something about this moment touched
me so deeply that it opened me back into
the poem with a capital P for the rest
of the day
and I went about noticing the life
moving through the world and I came home
my heart bubbling over with the joy of
aliveness and I did the only thing left
to do which was my way I wrote it down
and so this is called everyday
conversations there is a grace that
rests in the underneath of things and it
peeks out in the shine of the maple
outside in her autumn conversing with
Sun and in the way the girl on the
sidewalk laughs at the life growing wild
through the pavement and it’s hidden
within the blind man’s question as he
makes his way through these harsh urban
streets to pause at the corner of his
ATM or still he must ask me which one
it’s a sermon at 16th and mission as
this man sees with senses most unknown
to us and it touches the heart with a
humble reminder to never get too big for
questions and as we wind our way through
the wilds of this world with our great
courage big dreams hard-earned skill may
we remember to pause and to ask and to
listen and to laugh with the cracks in
the pavement
thank you
[Applause]
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