Listen Poem by Fred Babbin

Listen
I am speaking of what I am
and what you are
and the mistakes we've made
that we can forget,
so we can watch
the setting of the sun
and the rising of the moon
all in complementary colors
with the stars sprinkled
like pepper on a salad
but more engaging
for the stars will return.
You will eat the salad
so it will be no more
like everything else.

But we, the stars,
the sun and the moon
have come from violence
We live in a violent universe
which may or may not end
although it had a beginning.

So we live in a yes / no universe
with answers we don't understand
and we talk of happiness and unhappiness
as though that is the essence of life
and isolation is death.
But there is such isolation
even in the crowd
the crowd of units, of ones
that suffering exists
in the joy of life.

Then we have life and death
something out of nothing
and we will be nothing.
We are the tinkling bell
before the dark mirror
that will always be dark
but that is of no consequence
since we are not looking into it