Listening Poem by Eric Cockrell

listening... for the sound
your hand makes when it touches mine...
for the words your eyes whisper
when you laugh...
for the song your heart sings,
and the prayer your sleeping body
becomes, pressed against mine.
for the sound of the cicadas
chanting in drunken rhythm...
for the boiling of beans
in my grandmother's kitchen.
for the crush of the bat
driving the ball deep into the gap.
for the gurgle of creekwater
running o'er a melon wedged tight.
for the sharp crack of the gun
and the bullets whistling overhead.
for the cry of the hungry baby
and the slap against his mother's face.
for the clank of the leg irons
across a cold concrete floor.
and the wail of the widow.
for the song of the workers
bent neath the sun in the field.
for the speech of the visionary
who already smells like death.
for the pounding of the oil rigs
raping the earth without feeling.
for the lies of the politician
stealing the souls of the people.
for the sound of hate's fists
pounding the gay boy to death.
for the scream of raging empty
when they bring a mother's boy home.
for the sound of the door,
closing for the last time.
for the memory of an old hymn,
calling from beyond the river.
listening... for the moan of lovers,
bodies slapping in the night.
for the wild beating of a heart
dissolving nameless into mine...
for the echo of something more
than a drink and a feeling...
that needs to breathe, to run, to fly,
and to dance
listening