Vox Populi
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Alison Luterman: Hard Listening
He’s tuning the piano.
Listening hard.
Plink! plink! and then
silence while he considers,
then a tiny pop-skritch-pop
as he adjusts something,
then back to the plinking again.
We’ve had a heat wave
so everything’s gone flat–
the strings, my appetite
for life. Come winter
it’ll all contract with cold
and sharpen again,
and next spring
he’ll be back at it
with his tuning wrench and fork
and the stop clip
and the little rubber mutes.
I am listening to the intensity
of his listening.
Eighteen years together
and we still work
to hear the wounds
under the words. To listen
purely, the way he is now,
every cell of his body
quivering with attention,
as he leans in
to the upraised lid,
closing his eyes
when the softest hammers
vibrate.
~~~~
Alison Luterman is a poet, playwright and teacher who lives in Oakland, California. Her books include In the Time of Great Fires (Catamaran, 2020).
Copyright 2025 Alison Luterman
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Perfect day for me to read a musical love poem with the lines:
“I am listening to the intensity
of his listening.”
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So well done, Alison — hits me on so many levels.
Thank you for putting your work out there in the world to help the rest of us.
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Thank you!
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Lovely love poem.
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Thanks, Donna!
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❤️❤️
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Love many of the lines others have quoted! This is a wonderful poem that makes the reader listen as the speaker listens to the words’ “plink” and “plink.” The wounds under the words are tender and echo in the words as the works themselves echo. Lovely, Alison Luterman!
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Oh I love this poem, Ali–and the man and the woman in it, and the music they make! I love the hard listening and the invitation to all of us to live into that, too …
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Oh yes.
>
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Oh, Rosemerry, thank you, darling!!! I’ve been thinking of you! Let’s talk soon… ❤
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“I am listening to the intensity
of his listening.
Eighteen years together
and we still work
to hear the wounds
under the words. “
How powerful, those lines!
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Yes, these lines.
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Barb, was your Substack account blocked? What happened?
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Facebook is limiting me. Don’t know why. Will continue to post VP and other good stuff under pictures of good orange Monarchs ( butterflies) until I can’t.
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Thanks so much, Laure-Anne! I am a big fan of your poetry!
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I also love those lines.
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Alison Luterman brings attention to both the resolve and hope involved in carefully re-tuning a relationship. Her watching the other partner work at their role, while invoking her own psychic (poetic?) powers to help resolve disharmony, feels like deep love leaning in at the keyboard.
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‘deep love leaning in at the keyboard’. Yes!
>
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I love “re-tuning a relationship.” Yes! It needs constant re-tuning…
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what finely tuned music from such sensibility as apprehends these elements, hardly separable from the the heart. Alison has worked the magic of the strings, with her lines and has given us a most wonderful poem.
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lovely! thanks, Sean.
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Yes, thank you Sean!
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such a love poem. Beautiful.
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yes, beautiful!
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