Listen Poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar

There is one activity,
Many find difficult.
And extremely hard,
To commit themselves to do.
With this task, although easy...
Only takes a willingness,
To accept and learn something...
That maybe new.
And there are a few who regard,
This to do is also painful too!

To listen.
With more attention undivided given,
Without it to mention...
What is heard to hear may conflict,
To that which one is exposed to have shown.
And perhaps beyond limitations,
One has grown to have known.
Believing nothing else in life,
For them is possible to experience.
This...
Can open a door that leads to embarrassment.

To listen.
And patiently doing it,
With this to determine...
What is true to not delude.
Knowing the life you live on a daily basis,
Is more real to you,
Than something else another wishes to prove.

Just listen.
Regardless if others will not admit,
Their lives to live...
Have become more confused and complex.
As if pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
That has left them in a struggle,
Fighting against a reality to accept.
And a consciousness overwhelmed by fiction.

Listen.
Doing this giving undivided attention.
And hear it heard from those who argue.
Still in confusion mode.
Still refusing to understand or comprehend,
Why their mouths and not their ears...
Remain to stay actively open.
And not listening to hear,
To them said repeatedly...
Is one of the main reasons,
They 'see' everything and everyone around them...
As messed up.
But deny their attention wished to get,
Has nothing to do,
With looking to start an argument.
Over something they thought,
Heard not to hear.
To then say...
"What difference would that have made? "