My Ears Are Wooden

  My Ears Are Wooden

(“Then he arose and rebuked the wind and the tempest of water, and they ceased, and it became calm.” Luke 8:24b)

In the meantime my ears were wooden,
I could not hear the beat set before the song began.
The winds whistled, shuffling the rhythm, and I
played on as if the damage was not done.

But we never finished together, the band and I.
I took the hard passages, the ones that were effortless
in my youth,
and now my fingers played on muddy fretboards,
I sloshed and panted my way through the solos.

I thought I was tired. I thought I was bored. I thought
I had grown old and would never touch the same tunes again.
I thought it was temporary. I thought I could come back.
I thought more practice would restore the agility of my youth.

But each solo my fingers were out of breath. Each melody meant
to take the song to the heights had to be edited,
my songs were discredited,
and my wooden ears only wanted to hear the way
I once played
before all the murmuring began.

Shiftless, lonely, angry, and afraid. It was another storm
among many. My energy was taxed by all the others before,
there was nothing left over. How to tell everyone that one more
crushing wind
has taken one more piece of my life
away again.

Without a band to rehearse. Without the skills I once had.
Without the tempo beating true. Without reserves to get me
through an entire song unwinded…

I’ve ended waiting alone for the winds to shift,
(if they have a mind to)
or send more bandmates to drift on the breeze
where we can easily play old songs like
old men do.