life whirls --
blowing in
through open windows
and doors....
in the puff of air against my face,
i am sometimes halted --
i sense a cadence
within the rush
and routine
of daily living
a sort of miraculous rhythm
of comings and goings
haves and haven'ts
old age and death
uncomfortable pregnancies
delirious births
iridescent joy
rending grief....
pausing at the threshold,
i become aware of life's notes --
running and chasing and loving
each other across
the keys of a distant piano....
despite despair
abreast of beauty
i stand enwrapped
by eternity....
•
once,
on the way up into
an indelibly still
exquisitely soft
grey whispery dawn....
up, from deep
peaceful
midnight blue
dreams --
i heard the river rushing by me again....
it was like waking
to god....
or to a lover's touch....
i and the river
--and the wind
and the sound--
and
the air
the light
the dark
the depth
we lay blended into
one moment....
i couldn't tell if i were the river --
or was i by the river?
when the night-current
softly buoyed me up
to full wakefulness,
the lovesong of the river merged
into whooshing tires
on a distant motorway....
i lay bereaved....
oh my river....
what incandescent cruelty
in this life
turned you into
a highway?
•
yet inside me these things dwell:
the silence the river the dawn
the darkness the light....
and now and then
singularity
re-expresses itself
through a puff of breeze
across a sunny expanse of pavement....
through voices joined in friendship
wafting up from sidewalks below....
through a single piano note
wandering through the air --
dropped delicately
like a curtsey
upon my delighted ear....
_____________
© 2011
beth anne boardman
