We, too, began with joy.
Then, sickness came;
then, poverty.
We were poor, so poor,
our children were are only friends.

Gently, gently,
through anger and pain,
love justified itself,
like the nails in the house
during a storm.

Somehow, we created hope,
reliable drum
in the shadow’s wrist;
a tuning fork
on the sidewalk of dreams.

At night, I was the one
who became a cello,
strung with all our roads.
where memory hums
to itself like a tire.

And you, mad as a clarinet
where the street divides;
a city of raindrops in a bush;
the slow honey that drips
from the sky’s old ladle…

the reason I’m frightened of death.
I swear by the wings
love spreads at my waist,
that I’ll carry your tune
until my tired strings break.

1979

 = Daniel Myers