The Melody Fell Like Rain

The Melody Fell Like Rain

(“But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. For behold, I bring you good news of great joy, which will be for all people.’” Luke 2:10)

You sitting in limbo between dusk and dawn,
you’ve drawn your boundaries in the dark,
built your fortresses by dimming firelight.
You couldn’t see, which forced you to emit
certainties to keep away the cold and fright.
Even when the wind turned
you insisted the world was ending.
(I should say, for clarity,
all would be destroyed except your indoctrinated
minority.)

But on the edge of your eyeliners, arrowheads and
atomic defenses, there is a riff floating down from
unheeded clouds. The stars were obscured, so you
observed nothing but pre-quake jitters. You thought
the end was near.

Acid jazz sounds so ominous in the middle of the night.

But the melody fell like rain on the other side of the hill,
the riff that began like Voodoo Chile woke a cohort whose
campfire was all the light they needed. They had told stories
all night,
they had watched the lambs asleep
and played harps and pipes, sung highland and
baritone, mostly out of tune.

Even as the wind turned they remained undisturbed,
caught up in ancient tales, sagas passed down for centuries.
As the drops of heaven floated above their heads, one,
then another,
then each, then all,
laid down their voices and muted their lyres to hear
the song that had no beginning, the song that would never end.

It was sung backwards, as far as they could tell, but the
meaning was clear,
the words and tempo, 120 bbm, matched their own pulse
as they stood in wonder.
This was new and not a traditional fable; it was familiar,
but felt ageless, lyrics sifting through the layers of dust
that had settled like wrinkles on human faces.

Joy was a comma. Now it was exclaimed. Joy was a
rest stop. Now it was uncontained. Joy was a possession.
Now it was unrestrained.