LIFE NEEDS MORE SINGING

The woman, bearing down on her birth canal

Is far from singing – she is crying.

Crying out in pain and looking for the release

That only birth (or death) can give her.

And the birth-born is not singing – she is crying.

Crying out for the loss of her mother’s warm, wet womb. 

 

Life needs more singing.

 

The hop-scotching girl of seven has learned to sing

Before her songs are drowned out by cries from scraped knees.

And the unearthly love of an adolescent girl

Causes her to sing one day and then sob the next day.

 

The college girl sits in the park with her roommate

They sing in the fading light and in their faded denims.

Swearing in blood they will always sing together.

Not realizing that they will go their separate ways

And there will be no more “togethers” for singing.

 

The young woman goes to a bar and hears the drunken songs

And wonders why she doesn’t hear singing on Main   Street.

The only singing she hears there is the singing of geese flying

And their Song of the South pilgrimage as they escape the cold.

 

She hears the singing at her wedding, and the crying of her mother

But does not find herself singing in her house – she only listens to the radio.

She sings in harmony while in church on Sunday mornings,

But forgets how to sing melodies during the week.

 

She visits her mother in the nursing home and hears the moans and groans

But doesn’t hear the singing of those who have the most to sing about.

And at her mother’s grave site, she wonders if people there died

Because their hearts stopped beating or because their hearts stopped singing.

 

Life needs more singing.

 

Curiousdwk