People Who Call the Help Line

Listening is seeing.
  They are like trees with melancholy tunes, 
  leaves hued by a hidden sun,
  ballads with blue histories.
I hug them through the phone,
  as I hug my favorite trees,
  beside the gentle pond, the gentle pond
  where late in summer two swans swam.
It doesn't matter if their stories,
  their branches, sing with beautiful birds
  or coil with chronic, crying snakes.
  My answer must be to hug them all.
Hugging is seeing too.