The Music from Within

 

The Music from Within

(‘Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” Philippians 4:4)

One day you can hear the mandolin strings singing just
outside your window.
The next day the fog hangs so close nothing pierces the
heavy silence.
Some weeks are lived this way, and some years.
Some storms turn suddenly away and some
sit overhead like they have nothing else to do.

One day you’re riding comfortably under convertible skies,
the next you’re confined inside a cramped stone basement
averting your eyes from the next claustrophobic wall of sound.

Joy is not for the faint of heart,
but for those willing to confront the darkness
and the detours
that stop us in our tracks. Deeper than the cellar floors
and the shadows, higher than the star-view disguises,
wider than ecstatic proclamations, and closer than
the bud to the branch

Is the unmovable space where love abides,
where transient meets immanent,
where music from within captivates us
when continental shelfs shake us to our core.