Tell It Slant, Third Edition, 3rd Edition

4

To Keep an Ear to the Ground

Barbara Hurd

Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard.

—ANNE SEXTON

In China long ago, people hid drums inside holes they’d dug along ancient roadways. To put an ear to the ground was to bend down, miles, maybe days, later and listen for the deep percussion of the enemy’s boots approaching.

In Antarctica, marine biologists, stretched out on their bellies with their heads turned sideways on the ice, heard—down there in the deep, dark cold—the ancient songs of penguins.

Sometimes when I put my ear to the ground, I make my own arbitrary rules: No listening for anything I might expect. No listening for anything that has a plan for me. No listening to anything that knows I’m listening. No pretending to listen ...