'ontophony' - (january 2009)

When I first heard you
you moaned
in a great quiet,
and your tremors floated,
flung distant, free,
on the wings of sparrows
awakening with the dawn.

When we first came to speak
I laughed
at the ease of your words
sliding through my nerves,
coursing down through bone
and blood,
flying down, bursting through skin
burying themselves
in the cackling of keys
or the low chuckle
of pen across paper.

When you first moved
I swayed
my arms spread wide on the wind
splayed
against the push of your breath
I stiffened
and twisted
yearning to feel your force
and bend my bow
to drink deep your current
and travel far on your song.

But my arms
fragile sticks
were useless to tame your wind
and broke, useless
your voice a distant drum
carrying an echo of sound
miles across the ocean
but no longer could I respond
to your rhythm-
my head, sunk,
confounded,
released the memory of your shadow
to the whisper of water
hissing under the keel.

But the currents,
clueless, careless
gravid with possibility
looked alive
with the stumbling fire
of my clumsy land-bound lips
shot through with saline,
and were at once
known
and unknowable
ancient as my newborn heart,
and all at once
in a great fire
were a chorus
poised on the edge of a melody.

The plying of waves
shot patterns
and rhythm
tesselations!
whispers of tone!
and your voice,
audibly unheard,
singing in its
great quiet
music-
the tune of my being.