1203. Years Later - David Palmer Grenell

In the dusty triangular attic

a box of old school books.

Inside, a worn volume of poems,

a page turned down at the corner-

my father and I, meeting again,

depending on The Red Wheelbarrow. 

1202. Love in A Flat - Lauren K. Alleyne

 

after Dean Young

Dean in a story about Coltrane:

how one time in a recording, he hit

a wrong note—a real clam.

In the second take, he hit it again,

this time harder, longer.

The third time, it became the heart—

the sound all the other notes wrap themselves around,

a different understanding of the melody—

the song beneath the song: the stubborn beat

holding up the heaviness of flesh.

1201. For Guy Davenport - Wendell Berry

Within the circles of our lives

we dance the circles of the years,

the circles of the seasons

within the circles of the years,

and the cycles of the moon

within the circles of the seasons,

the circles of our reasons

within the cycles of the moon.

Again, again we come and go,

changed, changing. Hands

join, unjoin in love and fear,

grief and joy. The circles turn,

each giving into each, into all.

Only music keeps us here,

each by all the others held.

In the hold of hands and eyes

we turn in pairs, that joining

joining each to all again.

and then we turn aside, alone,

out of the sunlight gone

into the darker circles of return.