Hunger, or What I have yet to learn

Be willing to listen for a long while, longer than you think is necessary.
Listen until all of the batteries run out of juice,
and all of your coffee buzz has worn off.
Listen until the spinning and clicking of the gears of your brain quiet themselves, winding down like the cuckoo clock
with their silly costumed figurines waiting to show themselves.
Listen until they have laid down their heads on tiny wooden pillows inside your gut,
until what is left is the silence and low hum of your own pumping heart.

Listen as you walk the wood floors
through rooms gray with morning light
on winter days that straggle into spring
like truant children.
Listen while it is very quiet. You may have to strain to hear
(although some say there are times when it is as if
God shouts
in the colors of that sunset between the tall brick building
and the fence overgrown with green climbing brambles.
shouts
in the voice of a dear child who speaks your name);

It is in the hunger and quiet that your soul will strain,
in your paucity that you will finally seek.
It is here that he says what needs to be heard:

“Come all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!
Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me,
and eat what is good,
and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.
Give ear and come to me;
hear me that your soul may live.” (isaiah 55)