symphony

I turn down our tree-lined streets,
the empty branches reaching skyward
yearning skeletons just now beginning
to show signs of new life, the groans of
creation tuning up like an orchestra
preparing to play a new symphony.

Yet, the trees have not been silent all winter.
Their shadow song is harder, but a melody
nonetheless. The strains of pain and silence
are not easy playing or listening, yet an essential
movement to inform the resurgent joy that
comes with recreation, reawakening, rebirth --

and I am Nicodemus, wondering how we, as
collective Creation can carry all our weight
and worry back into God’s womb and come
forth singing a new song. Biology breaks down
in ways melody does not. We aren’t going
back, but forward, from womb to womb,

birth to birth, song to song, from God to God,
moving symphonically from stark to lush,
from solo to emsemble, from pianissimo to
forte and back again. Newborn babies cry –
as do widows and orphans, the homeless and
the hopeful: tears are our shared melody.

Peace,
Milton