By Liam

When the world grows loud with its own undoing,

I beg, listen gently.

Listen, not to answer,

not to achieve, but to manifest.

As an echo returns to me

It carries more than the sound:

a trace of singing,

a memory of whence it came,

the warmth of you who were.l

Nothing we hear is unique.

It has moved reflecting from stone,

Across time,

through the hearts of people 

before arriving in mine.

So I pause.

I make room

I anticipate.

In that small significant moment,

something shifts

not the world all at once,

but the way I stand within it.

 And for a moment,

the future feels possible,

because I am not alone

in the listening.

But part of the process 

Of understanding who we are.