When Someone Deeply Listens to You by John Fox
National Poetry Month
“Poetry really is the cure. When you stop jabbering long enough to listen to what is going on around, among, and inside us- and we have someone to help us put that into the fewest, truest words available to us- the air clears and the aliveness flows through all the spaces in between.” Barbara Brown Taylor
John Fox is a poet and certified poetry therapist and wrote the book Poetic Medicine: The Healing Art of Poem-Making. I stumbled across one of his poems a few years ago and shared it on social media. It recently showed up as a memory and I see the value in sharing again. Deep listening feels like the salve for the wounds of the human condition but how we allow what we hear to change us, is where the intersection of healing begins. John Fox resides in California. However, his book was published by Penguin Random House Canada, so I am using that as my flex for sharing. I promise to showcase more Canadians this month as well.
When someone deeply listens to you
it is like holding out a dented cup
you’ve had since childhood
and watching it fill up with
cold, fresh water.
When it balances on the top of the brim,
you are understood.
When it overflows and touches your skin,
you are loved.
When someone deeply listens to you
the room where you stay
starts a new life
and the place where you wrote
your first poem
begins to glow in the mind’s eye.
It is as if gold has been discovered!
When someone deeply listens to you
your bare feet are on the earth
and a beloved land that seemed distant
is now at home within you.