Listening to the In Between

A January downpour thrumming against the backdoor. The soft scratching of my pencil on this smooth paper. A jazzy sax emptying itself of its music.

Listen! Listen closer dear. What else do you hear?

The swallowing sound my throat makes. The jingle of my earrings as I look up to watch the rain finding its way down, down. The kind knocking of my persistent heart.

Listen deeper love. Listen to the in between. To the before, the after. Listen until you hear what can’t be heard.

Gently, softly, I retrieve my listening. Pulling it back from what it can touch and hold on to. Pulling it back from the forms it’s used to. Letting it sink beneath the surface of sound. 

Gently, softly, I encounter the emptiness. I enter the ocean that allows the waves their play. And join the silence where all sound is born and will eventually return to.

Now tell me dear, what are you listening to?

To nothing. To no-thing. To an emptiness brimming with opportunity. I am listening to what’s not yet here and not here anymore. To the ground all sound is rooted in and grows from. To the formless that allows each separate form its place, its time, its existence. 

I am listening to what is.
To what will never end.
And never leave.
To You.