Saturday, October 20, 2012

The Rainbow Forest: A Suite for Music


It turned out in the end
                Your love was me
Ravishing the sun
                I couldn’t see

You slipped away free

A little girl who’d lost
                Her trusting way
Bravely hesitat-
                -ing how to stay

You couldn't say

The rainbow forest says what we can’t bear
Hearts we lived inside
Were never there
You left your secrets hanging in the trees
But I never will know where

The Eno River
                Kept on to its course
As we babbled on
                ‘Til we were hoarse

Far from the source

The world we shared was
                Nothing but this world
In silent treatment
                Slow unfurled

Lips only pearled

The rainbow forest shining in the pond
Faces smiling
From a wand
What the frieze reveals is all we know
But it never goes beyond


I have lived inside another’s dream
Without a feeling
I have played so many foreign scenes
                To think of stealing
I have rushed to sides of broken hearts
Without thinking it was mine that fell apart
And now the leaves remind me of the time
I spent wasted on the swelling brine
For you were never what I thought you were
And neither was I

The rainbow forest holds its secrets well
The sugar maples
Never tell
I wait and wait again at our old stone
For the closing mercy bell

Leaves like drops of rain
                Easy from the breeze
Fall around my feet
                Like a gift from grieving trees
So I can know how what I feel is shared
Across the living stars and breathing seas

The rainbow forest lets its losses blow
It’s beautiful
To never know
Even the most narrow love goes on
As one endlessly it goes