to adjust our music

rhythms

the air feels of winter:

crocus and daffodil whisper of spring,

sleep calls to me to mirror

the bare elegance of a leafless tree, and wait to act,

while the bareness of the garden

pushes me to act to be ready for the next season,



rather like the way stores anticipate

the clothes soon to be needed,

winter forces us inside

where it’s easy for viruses 

to add their needs to our own,

almost as if to mock how we build

with how energetically they can take us down,

every person lives a life

as if each is an instrument with its own tune,

and, yet, we do not often play alone

where our flourishes and notes 

just have to cohere with each other,

instead every other also sounds what feels right for each,

and, as we add our sounds together, 

cacophony can cry out,

to be most successful in how we sound the world

we need to adjust our music to others,

to other people and to the grand rhythms

with which the world itself surrounds us,

sometimes we need the grace to yield and follow,

sometimes we need the audacity to wrench the music

into a rhythm we find true and new.

by Henry H. Walker 
February 18, ’13