CALL ME BELOVED

It’s funny that the first chords that you come to
are the minor notes that come to serenade you,
and it’s hard to accept yourself as someone, you don’t desire –
as someone you don’t want to be.
– excerpt from Rambling Man, by Laura Marling

the days where I’ve nothing to say
can sometimes become the simplest poems to write.
out of a void comes sense and thought,
the subtle glances and milestones of the day
become stanza and form, the ordering of chaos
upon blank pages and scraps of paper.

the lines that follow are disappointing and
the words that come are downtrodden –
and the truth is that the sad poems
are the easiest to write, such a rich
library and lexicon to draw from, and
such a troubled world just outside the door.

classical music swells from the radio,
the too-bright sunlight of three o’clock
accompanied by lively violins and horns.
it’s making the afternoon surreal –
an unfitting soundtrack for a life too mired
in complacence to justify the effort.

the song on the radio builds while
the homeless man parks his shopping cart
of bottles and bags in the plaza outside,
curls up on the marble memorial’s bench
to block out the wind, and for a second
a sliver of his pain is my own.

as if on cue the crescendo dies off
into a mournful, slow draw across the strings,
the man shivers on the stone bench
and I can’t change it –
I cannot stop the wind from gusting,
I cannot take away his fatigue, and
he looks so very tired.