Who’s Noticing, a poem
“I feel like this journey is unfolding before me,” he said.
He had been reflecting on his life journey and was curious and excited about where it would lead him.
He told me he felt connected to Buddhism and Eastern philosophies, and had been working on practicing presence, kindness, compassion, and empathy, though he acknowledged it wasn’t easy.
He shared about some of the milestones along the way, including being part of a touring band. “Before I was part of the band, I was in a dark place, but this was my first experience of a whole,” he said. Spending time with his grandfather before he died left him pondering big questions like “what is a sense of self?”
These days he was passionate about the mountains, being with nature, and making a meaningful contribution to the field of science as a research assistant (he felt grateful for a boss who made that possible). “Everything is interconnected,” he said. “It’s all an expression of the universe. How we see and understand it is a matter of perspective.”
Listener Poet Jenny Hegland
University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
July 2021
Who’s Noticing?
There's a beautiful journey unfolding
nature uncovering itself
There's presence, absence
ease and disease
There's space and sound inside music
grace existing in the gruesome
There's kindness, empathy, compassion
the illusion of separation
There are atoms, molecules, cells
tissues, organs, bodies
making up bigger bodies
There are synchronicities
Chronos and Kairos
There are questions, like
who am I and who are we?
There are dreams set only in mountains
There are grains of sand, black holes
wolf dogs, exceptional bosses
There's visual snow and 7-year cycles
suffering and science
There's waking up to the unfolding
inside and in between everything--
There is noticing.
