Honest Song

Honest Song

(“Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.” Acts 4:13)

Now the day played upon their porches like
southern homes and sprawling lawns. Each morning
was the same,
the songs all remained in collective memory; planets
circling the comet tail of unwritten history. Lyrics barely
changed, (a word, a name, he and she), and we always recognized
the melody. Thousands of players and heard it around
the same porches on days as long as these. Some tapped time
to the trains clacking by; others to the crickets hidden from sight.

The children were shy once someone caught their eye, yet,
unobserved, they cartwheeled and caterwauled, ringing the
aging apple tree and whirled like Jupiter’s moons; holding hands,
a human carousel, the laughter lifting above the music until
everyone fell with the dizzying ease of equal parts child and
invisibility.

The old phrases take us home, the unwritten melodies, better
live
than recorded,
are the ones that have courted our hearts to love meadows
more than avenues,
and
maypoles more than
altitude.

With less knowledge than the perfected players,
the sheer truth of honest song presses kisses on the forehead
and grass stains on the knees.