Thursday, April 18, 2013
What Happened (poem by Dorothy)
What Happened, or the Difficulties of Communication
First it happened,
but of course
you couldn’t talk
about it.
It was as if a plant or a sapling tree
suddenly sprang
out of your forehead,
invisible to everyone
but you.
You knew it was there,
sending its green root
down into your dark places,
demanding that you water it
in spring,
trim it back
in fall.
And you did,
for by now
you and it were one
entity,
indivisible
and growing closer
every day.
And then there were the
musical interludes:
flutes and mandolins
vying for attention,
each wanting to be
solo, but reduced again
and again
to sheer accompaniment.
The melody was, of course,
beautiful,
like a chorus
of angels
or the choir in Grace Cathedral,
at midnight on xmas eve,
only you were the only one
who heard it,
and as much as you loved it,
you knew better than
to mention it
to outsiders.
There was in fact
the inner mantra:
Don’t tell, don’t tell,
going round and round
in your head
like a spinning flywheel,
the hub of a chariot
sparking gold
as it ascended
into the clouds.
Dorothy Walters
April 14, 2013
