Learning to Hear

It's eight long years since
we walked off the hot terror
of the thieves that stole
into my head and squatted
on the side porches of my brain
with their baggage of migraines,
confusion, and wild spinning rides
in my very own bed.

Then we thought the surgery
that took them and the nerve
we shared was a brutal turn,
the lesser of two evils,
a tragic chapter in a story
that had held such promise.

Today we walk the soft river trail,
smell the fresh morning breath of
sycamores shaking off their slumber,
splashing sunlight we can taste
like chilled summer chardonnay.

I watch you chatter and flit
like the eastern bluebirds
that have colonized the park
for another season, and I
wonder how to tell you that
the last echoes of the white noise
of effort have finally died away
and I can hear clearly
the crystalline voice that has always
been in the wind.

© August 26, 2003, Sanford C. Shugart
Ps. 104: "you make the winds your messengers"

TOP