Listen

listen until the machine runs down
you will have to listen long into the night
and where the earth is most blighted
you will have to listen with other ears
only listen

it will take practice
many days or many years
it will take patience and understanding
above all understanding
a supreme effort to come to see the machine
to come to know its ways
to learn to hear its grinding scream
to learn to hear it
one night
as it runs down

and in the special places
where its grip is still loose
in the special places you may have to create
in your head
you will hear

you will hear
a fragment of silence

first it will be a silence
that is an absence of noise
an absence of the grinding
an absence of the scream

it will become a silence
that is a repose
a freedom

and then
if you are not seduced to sleep
you will hear

you will hear
the song of the earth