To Arrange a Life

This is a pointless practice, it could be said.
No one reads poetry these days, some think.
I didn’t until a year or so ago. I would take

the time to write my thoughts, that catharsis
of Aristotelian poetics, for a slowing down
of my breath—but to take the time to listen?
But now I want to hear the whispers of silence,

and somehow I think that involves this reading
and writing of words in strange arrangement,
open mostly to inconclusive endings, for you
can’t expect anyone to read these things,

anyway. Any way is not one way, and I’d
encourage you to listen your way, as long
as that includes listening. Sounds are not always

voices and messages. Lack of message is at
times the loudest message of all. That’s how
they get you. We think we know discernment.

We make a lot of choices. But who really reads
poetry these days, and why would I bother
to write out my life’s thoughts when they arrive,
to look inside my heart looking for what is not

dark that I might be freed from my strange
arrangements?