Sounding Like Tablas

Sounding Like Tablas

(“So then, no one should brag about human beings. Everything belongs to you.” 1 Corinthians 3:21)

And I heard a voice sounding like tablas against
a sweating sky. I never second-guess the sounds anymore.
And I saw angels flying,
though I saw nothing at all.
And I knew the world was filled with thoughts that had
wandered behind me
from the day something died within until
the moment I wrote this

WORD.

And I cannot describe, to even my own satisfaction,
why the sun should smile as it does.
I could not explain the way roosters crow,
doves cry,
and the earth dances, the earth whirls,
the earth prances, the earth twirls on its path
to who
knows
where.

My fists are unbent. My fingers are swollen from
years of piano notes,
from decades of fretting the chords to form
someone else’s songs.

I still hurry, hoping I’ll hear another pronouncement
that all is well, and all manner of things shall be well.
But the proclamations do not go before me;
they capture me,
they unwrap me before
I ever hear them coming.

I can see it on your face. No, I can imagine it.
The wrinkles around your eyes as you squint at my
imprecision.

I would explain. I would elucidate. I would hand out
an outline. I would project a PowerPoint. But

Some things

Are more felt that explained. And Spring beckons me
from this weary winter. Spring caught be by the heel with
the first sight of daffodils in my neighbor’s garden.