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Love Is Listening

Submitted by gregwa8 on Wed, 2018-08-15 02:04

like a child
who repeats the same
question over and over again

we forget
that love is listening

that it can take a lifetime
to get some answers

that there are processes in play

that the boat must
take its tallied time
to travel up and downstream

crops must take gnarly root
to grow, fruit to sun
before it sweetly ripens

even as adults
we are like children
and parents both
inside the same body

one repeating
the urgent requests

and the other
patiently loving
that desperate
hungry child

Review Request (Intensity): 
I appreciate moderate constructive criticism
Review Request (Direction): 
What did you think of my title?
How was my language use?
What did you think of the rhythm or pattern or pacing?
How does this theme appeal to you?
How was the beginning/ending of the poem?
Editing stage: 
Editing - rough draft

Comments

raj

Wed, 2018-08-15 05:22

you have touched upon a very important aspect about listening to a child....it is a fact that parents crave to hear their offspring speak but once they do and start asking questions to which they have no answers they ignore or say "ask your teacher". Questions are a type of an emotional hunger be it a child or a grown up and the first step is listening...
......................................................................................................

raj (sublime_ocean)

gregwa8

Wed, 2018-08-15 06:41

gregwa8's picture

thanks raj, for taking the time to read and your thoughtful comments! I like what you said. the poem is also about how love IS listening. good parents don't forsake their kids, but provide them with the things they need, including attention. a kid who is repeating himself often does it because they're impatient for an answer. that was the feeling that prompted the poem. this childlike thing in us that cries out for something "now!", when not everything is answered for us in our time or according to our feelings of desperation. how life must take its course. we ARE loved, but we don't always FEEL loved. so there are two parts in us, like the end of the poem says. the desperate child part, and the patient adult part.
greg

author comment

raj

Wed, 2018-08-15 13:35

yes Greg parents respond even in the middle of the night if the child is crying to be fed food...not necessarily when they need their emotional hunger to be sated...be them for love or the the attention [listening] they seek when seeking answers..
..........................................

raj (sublime_ocean)

lovedly

Wed, 2018-08-15 13:43

lovedly's picture

I can narrate a funny story
about a childs' questioning
and pop or mom giving casual answers
till he finds out from friends
but
grown ups take a life time to find what is LOVE
and it takes a life

gregwa8

Thu, 2018-08-16 14:20

gregwa8's picture

thanks raj and lovedly for the comments. I made some changes based on some of your comments, to make it more clear and to reflect the lifetime process it is to love.
greg

author comment

raj

Thu, 2018-08-16 14:24

that's nice Greg
.....................................

raj (sublime_ocean)

Eumolpus

Fri, 2018-08-17 10:38

Eumolpus's picture

I feel you have a great and very strong theme, and a very important one. Just the act of listening, really listening, which is very difficult for most of us to do, to truly listen, is a rarity and is in a sense an act of love. There is a universal truth at work here, and really most of the modern world has never learned how to really listen. Truly listening requires the listener to put his ego out of the equation, it is an act of giving. Your bringing this to our attention in a poem is brilliant.

With this wonderful theme I do not think you have nailed it yet in this poem. I feel the narrative of ideas bounce around- the child, the boat, the crops do not hit the mark. I would start the poem with "we forget/that love is listening" and proceed with images that carry the intensity of concentration and giving that true listening requires. That the boat is listening to the currents or wind to proceed on its journey...that the crops are listening to the soil to bear fruit.

I think a different sort of message comes out of the last image, I really relate to the ending part with some modification:

we are children
and parents both
inside the same body

one repeating
the urgent requests

and the other
patiently loving
that hungry child

(Why are we "like" children...we Are children and parents both. why use the word "desperately"? )
This is to me a complete poem in itself...

I hope you could rework the theme. It can lead to many questions and poetic truths. I think you have mentioned your involvement with religion...One might ask, is God really listening to our prayers? Is divine Love that act of listening?

..

Eumolpus
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance
ee cummings

gregwa8

Fri, 2018-08-17 21:59

gregwa8's picture

thanks Eumolpus for your feedback! I think it's a great idea, to use metaphors that deal more with the actual listening that is dealt with in the beginning of the poem. I appreciate your read and your intelligent feedback.

author comment
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