Speak to me gently…
I am listening with my bones,
instruments of hearing
my companions…
I listen by the fire.
Speak into my soul with touch and glance
while I walk to and fro and spread a feast
that’s fit for angels to consume and dance
under stars and with the silky moon.Bone-music vibrates
from my bone-core deep,
emanates from my sternum,
surrounds me in its sticky grasp
and to its gentle bosom I am clasped…
in drum, in harp, in whistle call and
in that dance on puffy clouds in fall.Hear its cry in my heart’s every pulse
and I must answer or I will remain
bereft and longing, agitated, always
and seeking in snows aslant and serious
and in ocean floors murky mysterious
and in that desert deep and in the forest strong
and beneath the breath of emerald wind’s ever-song
Finally, I simply rest
sitting in the shifting sands
and singing over long-dead bones,
my song arising, flying here and there
and hear the song of mountains and
the thrum of reefs against the waves
insistent, fresh and ancient
in the days, these days
that I am
Read and reread this–the opening stanza alone, sings. So lovely, Charissa.
Omg thanks Mel!
A bit of inside baseball: I was aiming at an irregular somewhat surprising rhyme pattern that the rhythm changes indirectly hint at but never ever quite deliver on schedule…because the Bone Song always twists away from the center to the periphery and there defines that place as center and draws us there…and then dances away again…and so on.
The work of singing bones is never done because from those bones dead and long dry comes the return of life and limbering and then sinews and then…rebirth and bones again encased inside living bone temples…waiting for the next round…
I could hear you reading this one.
Love its pulse!