The Listening Self Poem by Christopher Fladd

If short hard life steals hope or gives fright,
Here, this is how words can save, if believed,
Life; self, soul, listen in and allow them reprieve.

Seeming a tree lay in your path at night
Words can sink deep and plant fresh mental seeds,
Fulfilling innocent plans of those, blatant ignored needs.

Plans, which seem to come from light,
Earth, wisdom, become words to be told,
From an ancestors ether rising. Truth is old.

The American Chestnut trees fell to fungal blight.
Eminent ancients, almost lost, to a superficial poison.
Which, to its nation, was silent, and unnaturally foreign.

Words, being simple sound, far from tangible sight,
Amalgamate wishes with dreams, and your one true life,
Coagulate inspiration, delivering you from tumultuous strife.

Your translation alone births any felt insight!
The bones you heard rattle: Incus, Malleus, Stapes.
They’re bones of your own causing lucid epiphanies.

So, with choice, granted those words be right,
Use of the listening self, words can save your life,
Provide your chance for evolution of self into something rife.