Symphony
I
am not quite sure what movement we're in.
The
bows seem to be moving faster,
raking
my pulse across dark strings.
Dissonance
seems to dissolve what's left of a melody
I
am not quite sure
we've learned.
Yet,
some of the saddest strains seem familiar:
ancient
moans of cellos fainting against knees,
reeds
weeping along souls grown deep like the rivers,
cycles
of notes we are trusting to not climax in chaos.
Ancient
or further decay, death-tones color each interlude
and
leave me
straining to hear sounds that one day will swell.
I
am not quite sure what movement we're in.
The
Composer is famous for arrangements not expected.
I
know there was
a measure by which we measure history.
I
know there will
be
a day when chords will break
every cord.
I
know we wait:
somewhere,
suspended,
in
that second day.
So,
I am not quite sure what movement we're in.
The
bows seem to be moving faster,
but
it matters less
and less:
I
am invited to enter a symphony where
a
still, small Story exists amidst minor keys.
I
scratch to tap its melody
on
the breadth of my out-of-tune days.
Mosaic
Maker
The
mosaic maker stands
in
piles of stained-glass shrapnel,
sifting
through verbs and nouns
with
bloodied fingers.
She
struggles to find places for
stillborn
starvation
minefields
fault-lines
midnight-hued
-cides and
sold
She
seeks a strong cement
and
strains to see the Pattern
in
which all things (hard beauty)
hold
together.
Grateful acknowledgement to On the Road: Journal of the Anabaptist Association of Australia and New Zealand, the publication in which these poems first appeared.
No comments:
Post a Comment