Ode To Joy: A Listening Friend Poem by Dennis Lambert

Nothing’s more precious than a listening friend.
I’ve cried to canyons great, but echoes lose the words I send.
I’ve shouted to the seas, and breakers only muffle me.
And hurricanes howl to the soul that whispers secretly.

I am one who stands on the edge of eternity.
And you, my lovely, you stand next to me,
And these glistening stars, this milky way,
Are blind to what we see and deaf to what we say.

For this vastness does not my story hear,
Nor responds to what we love and fear,
And yet from you, my Joy-a sympathetic tear,
And your golden light that is warmly near.

We learn little in this life before the end,
Yet I’ve known always: Nothing’s more precious than a listening friend.