Speaking and Listening:

The Way of Spiritual Direction

by Mary L. Fraser

W ords that hold also release
like wood ducks whose mother sound
teaches the young to remember and to go;
the sameness gathers, then later, sends.
This is also like black oak whose leaves fall in spring
after the great gab of maple looses in the fall,
and you are knee-deep in brown, yellow, crimson,
wondering what is left to say.

Let’s be recovered to ourselves
speaking only what slight edge
opens a new landscape
welcoming us like Jericho when
three days of silence held God’s thought
until the one shout
broke through the walls.
Let us remember this path in the journey of
our lexicon.

I am listening for your intent beneath your
     competing emotions
for your possibility hidden in your language.
What do you remember? Where will you go?
What sound gathers and sends you?
What is the season of your loss, the colors of
     your change?
Speak this to me like ducklings or oaks or maples
     or Jericho.
Remind me of The One who is Silent, announcing
    you.

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