Exposed

November 24, 2013

~

He was a singer of stories, a teller of tales.

In the music, his voice allowed witness.

Permission freely given,

to know his loss and loneliness.

Open doors and windows, not slight but wide.

Exposing battered bone and a listlessness he did not hide.

These not seen as tangible colored streaks of paint,

but by tone and pitch were understood.

In these a ditch was made through dirt

in which to lie,

where notes are mixed with earth.

~

In each note lived his heart.

In each space his feelings taught.

Within each beat,

strong emotion left to start

~

a stirring in my own.

~

And yet, he hinted there existed strength,

the strength of trees.

Branches, some broken, bent and weather textured,

spent and twisted toward the blue and unbound, these stretched.

Reaching fog of water,

rain fell from his shouldering limbs

to brush my neck and face.

Rain music gently brushed my tears

to dirt,

building roots beneath its base.

~

Roots sent to the blue, berried flowering branches,

to break through earth, sent were sturdy grasses.

Resistant to the weather these roots of newly fired plants.

Not yet close were they to burning embers.

Time and chords were strong and fresh.

~

He was felt.

His moist air touched,

mixed with oils of skin.

I felt the rise and fall of notes

undulating, in movement

as mountain roads weave,

as baroque facades are carved,

as folds of bed sheets shift,

with wind through windows not yet shut.

~

In music I became whole.

In the harmonies, in his melodies,

between lines and spaces,

in combinations moving fluidly,

Pulling,

Dredging,

Stirring,

Sweeping.

~

Sounds drew

me. I broke through,

not unlike a sapling, not unlike a tree

renewed.