THERE IS MUSIC IN MY HEAD

by Vievee Francis

where before there was only silence.

Strings being bowed and plucked.

Feet are tapping. There are hands kneading

against the board. A pounding staff.

Call and yelp. Water a-gurgle. There’s

a music in my head like a clearing in the woods.

Do you hear it? Lips on the flute. Wind

through the reeds. I was lost, so lost,

the path a trace too thin to follow. It was dark.

Couldn’t see a damn thing in those pines. But

now the blue-green day brings its sounds

of honeysuckle and mushroom. The slim trees

bend and beckon. The naked clover wants

to be touched. Everything clusters and bursts.

The notes scale the hollow. The notes run

to the ridge then over they fall, water down

the rocks like laughter, like a giggle.

The bow goes over and under. A fiddling.

A fondling of butterflies in the hint of spring.

The first bee in the clutch of the sweet. I am

singing my way out. I am singing my way out

of the brickyards. Out of the keeping stones.

Listen for me in the clearing. I can’t keep this.