<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div dir="ltr"><span></span></div><div dir="ltr"><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Becoming the Listening Fields</div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"> </p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">In the end is the Word and the Word is story – our story, soft as the womb, </div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">silent as sun rays sipping sea mist, loud as sonic booms and atom bombs.</div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"> </p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Our story, sacred and profane, ever beginning, ever ending</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">and the ending that is Now, that is our doing and our undoing,</div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"> </p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">a post-biblical flood of torn multitudes seeking refuge on dispirited shores,</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">history's catastrophes, seeded when Word left the breath to grow cold on the page.</div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"> </p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Yet even as Now explodes, smoke fumes consuming the air, our story grows:</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"> Plums ripening in the over-bright aftermath of alphabets' fall from grace </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"> </p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Endgames defiling holy writ, end flames of creed and greed, energies blasted from </div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">primal bonds, forged into pawns of godless purpose -- weapons, poison, junk. </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.75in;"> </p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Still our stories ripen. Spirit fruit. Courage beyond the lash on naked flesh, beyond </div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">the ropes of scar, the chains of disdain, the rabid feral tortures, the drone infernos.</div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.75in;"> </p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Stories pour from us now, wine pressed into the page, libations for the goddess </div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">gods within, for the children lean and staring through refugee fences, hungry </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"> </p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">or over-plump and mirthless, staring at flickering screens. Libations for all the lined </div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">faces, the colonized eyes, jailed and enslaved in thoughts so perverse they blind <i>Self</i></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"> </p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">and devour <i>Other</i>, the ever-fertile over-flowing Other, weaving scented air with</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">whisper leaves, with rippling feathers and fur, flashing horns and thorns, pulsing in </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"> </p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">in petals and pollen, in glimmer vein wings, the One and the All, breathing each to </div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">each, as it was in The Beginning, vibrations intertwining, forming harmony's web.</div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.75in;"> </p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">We entered as echoes, melodies from the Milky Way, star chords ebbing and </div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">flowing, finding words in the listening fields, becoming the listening fields.</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Cynthia Poten</div><div style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: right; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"></p></div></body></html>