I’m meant to listen to you.
I listen to birdsong.
I notice how the bird will pause, sing,
pause, sing, sing — and so on.
You speak to me. Your voice is full of kindness.
Your tender words are formless to me.
You speak, and I wonder why
every measure of the bird’s song must begin
with a pause, must rise from the pause with which
the bird keeps on. Again you speak. Again
I half-listen. I cannot tell
from where comes the bird’s pause.
Over the door?
A house’s eave? A bough
in the neighbor’s tree?
Beyond the obvious logic — necessary
intake of breath, or that all sound must sound
against absence — when I consider the pause
the bird persists in making I think
of the face of God.
Last night we discussed this.
We wondered if God’s face
is the fullness of silence.
I look at you. I see you have paused
to breathe. You gaze out the door.
I watch. I wait for you to speak.
What if it’s true
that to seek the pause
the bird makes, or to wait for you —
to hear you pause, to watch the afternoon
soften over you, see its light brighten
on your lips when you stop
to breathe — what if it’s true
that to seek these things — and
maybe I’m right! Maybe
it’s true — is to seek, is even to know,
the face of God?