We have almost all of the equipment, all the gadgetry
we need to freeze and hold a moment, to contain
and carry with us, to taste and drink from like a canteen
when we are sad or lonely, when we are too tired
to find the chords and turn it to song—too deaf
to hear the Muse beg for her release. Your father’s
Martin has a history before hanging in a pawnshop
we’ll not know, but since it sings beneath your fingers
come the evening of light. We turn songs loose
to find new homes between trees sighing from the heat,
to rest among the shadows of oaks and sycamores—
imperfect melodies of humans, of natives here again.
