0419 Tribute To A Listening Man (George Steiner) Poem by Michael Shepherd

The TV studio set for a prestige production
of the sort that wins renewed network contracts
if not viewers, late on Sunday night:
the subject, a weekly series on
The History of Christianity -
worthy discussion leader, impressive panel
mingling ecclesiastical robes of
a glowing spectrum of faiths with the
open-necked, for open-minded,
dress-down of young freethinkers, but
respectful of their elders, with it;
subtle lighting on the semi-circular panel
and the background, tastefully designed
with hints of the history of otherworldliness

and among the assembled voices
of faith and reason in their polite battle,
the great intellectual guru of the Western world
himself – would his searing intellect, his daunting
global dimensions of mind, dominate
this gathering?

Life can have its glorious surprises even
on a dozy, precious-last-weekend-hours
of a Sunday night – George said his piece,
then, challenged by the other speakers,
sat there listening: as if, without a resistant, reacting,
or self-regarding thought in his head –
listened rapt in full attention, as if expecting
to listen to a further, deeper truth from
those who argued against him – his face
benign, almost smiling

I have never seen such intellectual humility –
as if, way, way beyond the personal, a mind
was listening constantly, for truth, to truth itself..
listening to that listening,
I felt proud to be
a human being.