Mountaintop

A sounding board sings the rhythm
of his fingers into pulsing air that plays
across the interspace where she waits.

Her own hollowness held up,
ready to be filled and then
resound with rhyming variations,
her voice the very thing itself
that invites truth and beauty
to make a bargain, signed with breath.

How to tell of what is passed between
us when we truly meet?

No. It must be music.

And this small remembrance
of how it tipped the balance,
even if it was a sad song,
a mad song, a bad song;
because it was your song
and though you mumbled through it
in your patchwork pants
and childhood jersey,
your chorus had the only words
that ever made my heart beat
so far beyond what it can mean
to burst, brilliant enough to brave
speaking with the old people
and not be scared, just silent,
until it all says:

“This is heaven, and you’re awake.
This is the centre of our universe.”

Traces

The key: keep your head up

Hear your own bones: heal yourself

Then play together