How You Are Absorbing This

while you listen
your eyes close
and it all changes.

what were once words
become symbols
burned into dark slate.

what were once urgencies
become meditations.
chants become mandalas.

whether asleep or simply engaged differently
than when you are
wide awake, what matters

is that you are absorbing this.
what seems passive is in fact
osmosis, which is still an activity

on your part. soft, inexorable transfer
of knowledge, feeling,
the backstory unspoken behind spoken.

when you open your eyes
you will have changed.
not all will notice. not all

will care to notice. wait them out,
closing your eyes again
if necessary.