
Notes do not always ascend
in a crescendo of delight
They also bend low
beyond the heart’s swift beat
until we feel breath stop
fearing heart’s defeat.
Notes ebb and flow
in patterns we do not anticipate.
Yet the music goes on
in beauteous escapade
across unlit rooms,
across shady glens,
across sunlit fields
and parking lots awash
in un-natural lights aglow
above harsh surfaces of worry
where we park to listen.
Music soothes as often as it pushes
heart rates into overdrive.
We rise on dancing feet
or subside to slumberous ease.
One orchestra makes sense
of the notes unfolding
up and down,
racing and slowing
until the music transcends
the past and brings us up fast
to the climax at the end.
Two orchestras cannot play together
unless they play the same notes
at the same pace to the same place
in time and space.
Each must follow the same rules
and read the same music sheet.
Without such agreement
there is a cacophony of sound.
No matter how well one orchestra
plays by the rules, its uplifting
music becomes mere sound,
its rhythm unable to be discerned
by the racket from the second
orchestra who has turned
from reading the music sheet
and playing by the rules.
We cannot stand the dissonance
and turn the music off.
We mistakenly believe
both orchestras at fault.
It is time to call a halt
to the orchestra of whining instruments
which refuse to abide by music’s rules
and continue to play us false.
I yearn for the sweet sounds of truth.
November cannot come too soon.


