the things i listen to

the unexpected blessing of forgetting my airpod case at home august when i was moving back to ithaca each little pod tucked in a different corner of my belongings a toiletry bag and the pocket of a pair of pants but without the case they were dead and helpless unusable so i listened instead to the sounds that i could hear in my vicinity like the birds the crickets the wind in the trees the cliches that poems are written about and i heard also shouts in the distance cars speeding by drunk drivers drunk students feet pounding as a storm of boys ran by they were in the military and they woke me just like the garbage truck that comes wednesday morning at 4 am to collect the trash from right below my window beep beep beep crash and off it drives whirrirriiing to the next line of cans at the next house i hear it all because my ears listen now and i do my dishes accompanied by the music of the faucet on pans and the scrub brush scrubbing and the plates clinking on the drying rack i walk to class and i listen to water roar below me to the leaves crushed on the ground my breath up the hill i listen and listen and i hear for the first time in a long time