What Passes Between

No response arrives alone It carries something from before A word can change the next one A pause can change its course We notice what is given Then answer from where we stand And what we send back changes What the other understands It happens in the smallest ways Too quietly to name One response becomes the reason The next is not the same What passes between people Doesn't travel only one way We respond to what reaches us And alter what we send away A little more open A little more reserved Every response becomes part Of what will be heard A question can make room For an answer not yet known An answer can make the next question Different from the one before Attention changes language Distance changes it as well We shape the conversation Even in the things we never tell There isn't always one beginning We can point to and explain By the time we see the pattern Both sides have already changed What passes between people Doesn't travel only one way We respond to what reaches us And alter what we send away A little more open A little more reserved Every response becomes part Of what will be heard Maybe influence is rarely Something one person simply gives It forms inside the movement Of receiving and returning What comes back is never only What was offered at the start Something happens in between That belongs to neither part What passes between people Keeps becoming something new What reaches one changes the answer The answer changes what comes through No single voice contains it No single side decides What happens in between us Is made from both directions Received Returned Received again And somewhere in between The pattern changes