The Higher Music

There is a higher music
in the clouds. It is sung
with lutes and lyres,
and the tender voices
from days long scattered
from my ears, and I ask
myself why does it stop
when I need it so very much?
Why does it mute its beauty
at that final, breaking point,
when I can barely hope
for anything past this evening
pushing so much harder
against this life that is mine?


But now I only hear
the music in brief sketches
and stretches of silence
and finger gestures with the white clouds
all entwined: and see it moving
from me like sails, like white,
white sails, crossing a clear blue line,
then disappearing once more
back in time.


 Nov. 3, 1997
Bronx, New York