Collegeville Institute apartment view
he said, so I did.
Listen with the ear of your heart.
Heart which has the word hear in it.
And I hearted the loon on the lake.
I hearted the skyful of blue.
I hearted the grass, for pity’s sake,
it made so much noise growing.
I hearted the sunlit leaves on the trees.
I hearted the old monk rowing
his boat across Lake Sagatagan.
The stones preach to me about Jesus
as I make my morning run,
my heart hearting hard as a racehorse
galloping up the Abbey Road
while I heart George Harrison’s
My Sweet Lord (There’s no escaping Jesus)
and heart McCartney’s naked feet
padding across the pavement.
There is so much to heart
and so little time
I’ve started to heart in my sleep.
The air conditioner,
the plastic blinds that keep
time to the bathroom fan.
St. Benedict, by David Paul Lange, OSB, and Steven Lemke
The voice of a monastic man
holding a book, pen in his hand
inscribing a word on the blank
page of the past,
calling to me across the vast
range of space and of years
balm to these aching ears,
now writ on my hearing heart
the word,
both first and last.
With the ear of your art, he says,
Listen!
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The loon, the stones, the plastic blinds, the monk with pen in hand–everything is, indeed, connected to everything else. Which, even with so little time, is a lesson worth learning, both first and last.