Unexpected poem”gift”

Though I am on a break from blogging to give my one-handed typing a rest (following a surgery on my left hand), I have to post this poem.

I interviewed a musician for a features article for my day job at a Colorado newspaper and a couple days later was in a local coffee shop eavesdropping on an impromptu jam session. Nine friends played guitars, a mandolin and a ukulele and the music got into my fingers, causing me to feel out a poem.

Here it is:

The making of stars

The warrior poem came in on the beat of the drums

all of it colliding like butterfly wings

a ripple of air through my heart

I hear it, I hear it

the hey—

let the voices

let all of them come

hey, hey—

the rising star on the stage of a field and

the other smaller stars in a coffee

house

let it come

where is the music

I hear it call

me out of my skin, magical arising

 

Hey, hey—

can I reach the sky

what are fingers on a guitar

and the wings of the butterfly

but ways to—

hey, hey—

touch blue into the falling

of loving night and day.

 

Stars are out all the time.

Hey, hey stars just don’t belong

to the sky.