You Missed All This

The local finches and doves and swallows
sang and warbeled and chirped for you,
dragonflies buzzed and a June breeze
whispered your inner name – but
you missed all this riding your bike past it all,
your headphones neatly hugging your ears,
playing nature music ...
The whole Earth is covered with your shoe leather
because you won't meet Her, and
you're missing all this!

Your MP-3 played bhajan or dhikr or hymns or reggae
through those earplugs of yours,
while the Beloved announced Herself
in the subtlest of tone unobserved –
and being hooked on technology, I'm afraid
you missed all this.

You've attended concerts and kirtans,
but having not taken home with you
the Sound going on all the time within you
and making it your own – Friend:
you missed all this.

Friend! be like Hassan that old one of Nablus,
who heard Ya Hu in the rustling grasses,
reading a dervish in every reed;
or, be like that young Chisti fella for whom
a Boulder foothill actually leapt once in praise
and the Flatirons there faced sunrise, showing
the call to prayer - or for whom, sitting
on that most commercially-zero island Kéa,
each lapping Greek wavelet before him
rose shouting out yes, yes yes, yes, yes, yes …

Try not to miss all this!