Songs You Will Not Hear

I hold this pile of despair,
Ashes with pieces of memory,
Charred bits of bone
Severed from the whole cloth
That blanketed our connection.

I sing to you songs
That you will not hear
Echo from room to room.
Tacit spaces are the best
For an unvoiced poem.

An armful of flowers
Gathered in the high meadow
Just below the tree line was my hope.
Dreams shatter like the dried
Yarrow in that bouquet.

Throw your card on the pile
And play the hand that’s left.
Dwell in the moment and forgive
The mistakes discarded painfully
Beside and behind you.

 

Text and Photo Copyright © 2011  CoyoteOldStyle.
All Rights Reserved.

Aquamarine: Dream

The water barely ripples. Warmer than the air above, it shimmers. Refracting and reflecting the early morning sunlight the water shows a mirror image. A toe curled around the rough white plastic breaks apart and reforms itself into a coherent picture captured on the surface.

Breezes through the stand of long-needled pines ruffle the small blond hairs on his legs. He pays them no mind. The sun at this hour seems to provide little heat. Dressed as he is for work, this could be a distraction, but he puts it far back into a corner of his mind. He has learned to shut the door on that place. That area is a box full of potential interruptions that could make his job impossible.

He reaches up to adjust the goggles. Long slim hands at the ends of powerfully muscled arms touch the rims and tug on the straps. Deftly, they are reseated and sealed to his face. Like silicone armor, they will protect his eyes from the chemical assault to come. He breathes.

Simultaneously, both hands are raised. Muscles tense along back, shoulders, arms. The wingspan is so broad it seems as if he must overcome gravity and slip into the ocean of air above him to cruise the thermals with the hawk over the trees. But no, this is stretching, ritual, mind-cleansing, preparation for entering an entirely different realm.

Powerful thigh muscles flex, his body carrying the burden of energy, waiting for the crack of the pistol to channel it. His hands fly down and then back up to parallel his shoulders, again and again. His mind is clear, open. Anticipating the starter’s command, not even visualization is allowed a single synapse. He allows only one thought, one image, one goal for this work day.

The wet blue gem swallows him, welcomes him, reminds him that this is his element. With the effortless thrust born of years of training, he glides through the water and is faster than anyone else on this day. Hardly getting wet for the speed.

He touches the other side of the pool and surfaces, a dolphin in the glittering aquamarine of the pool.

Summit

Stand at the edge
Of a granite place
So high that trees
Quit growing in the
Face of all that beauty.
Put your trust in
Something that you
Cannot see,
Or touch or hear,
A thing that you only
Can feel, can contact
With the fingertips of
Your heart.

Vow to take
This risk, this gamble,
Putting yourself
Firmly in the center
Of a nation filled
With truth and lacking
The anguish that will
No longer menace you.
Stand at the edge,
Take this chance for
Flight, to soar in the wake
Of eagles, to glide
In these currents of love.

Darkroom, Part 1

The kisses were oh so sweet and full of passion, totally abandoned, without self-consciousness or artifice. They kissed as if there was no beginning or end. They kissed in the dark and created light and shadow and contrast. They kissed amidst the chemicals and the running water. They kissed surrounded by cameras and film, enlargers and photo trimmers. Time stopped for a while but not long enough.

There was never enough time. Nor was there enough convenience for them to be together. There was work and school and other relationships. There was pain and grief. They parted uncomfortably. He smiled and she offered the tarnished excuse of personal growth and freedom while knowing that she was missing the best opportunity for happiness she might ever know.

Years passed. He wrote books and published them. She had children with men she thought she loved. He was a keynote speaker at conferences. She reread the stories and letters he sent. He travelled the world and she proofread other people’s fiction. They moved in their parallel circles, spiraling around each other’s lives but never intersecting.

Ingénues

They’re always so comely,
Wearing fragile, filmy gowns.
A distant breeze ruffles their
Blond/auburn/raven hair.
They stand at a window, a widow’s walk
On a land’s end precipice
Waiting for their fulfillment:
The man who will complete all
Those empty jigsaw places and make their
Inner Mona Lisas smile.
In high school they were the cheerleaders
And got the romantic lead in the senior play.
They were homecoming queens.
Later their studio-quality black-and-white glossies
Populated the society page where it was written that
They volunteered conspicuously
And went to church every Sunday.

They married quarterbacks and raised athletic stand-outs.
They baked cookies and dusted their dens.
They curled their daughters’ blond/auburn/raven hair.
We envied the ingénues and wondered
What was wrong with us.

Ideas stirred deep beneath the kinky hair
We tried so hard to straighten.
Solitary time was served in hours at the newspaper
Or in a practice room learning the character role.
We met beneath the bleachers to smoke and read Abbie Hoffman,
The sweaty gridiron as background music.
We ran without a backward glance from our towns,
Intense in the search for philosophical truths,
Querying everything and debating late into the night.
We married difficulty and raised our husbands
Until singularity became our way.
We fought with the world we were told to accept
And worked and worked and worked at becoming
Women.

Woodley Park

On dewy grass,
Fireflies flicker
Sparks of illumination,
Concepts, ideas, daydreams,
Hands touch.
Hold the shards of
What was once an optimist’s dream
Close to your face
But be careful not to hurt yourself
On the broken edges.
Tears won’t heal the damage of hope.
Growing up has its price,
Familiarity its rewards
And sanity its peace.