Island

Even if you are an island,

you are never alone, for the glad seas

tumble around you.  Even when the waves

are enraged, they seek refuge

on your shore.

You are kin of the clean bold air.

The moon and sun smile down, and seabirds

sing your names round about you.

If you feel abandoned, let your lungs

take in the living sky.

Feel the holiness of your ground

molded around you, and listen for seabirds

singing your names.

J. Pratt-Walter

2/27/2019

Quilt of Sound

Mom made quilts the way I write music –

colors coursing along and turning to face

new and unexpected friends,

each shade and chime an atlas

of melody and harmony cupped in union.

Mom started very simply –

ten rows of six by six blocks,

leftover fabrics from sewing our clothes.

But Nine-Patch gave itself over to Friendship Star

to Drunkard’s Path in its labyrinthine circus.

I heard the simplest melodies

skating along in my thoughts,

then built a forest of music and rhythm

bowing under its own weight to touch the Earth

or offering itself to skies and fires and hearts.

Eventually, quilt or song, they mapped a new universe

stringing dissonance in its angular way

to pools of consonance, to a divine resolution

or not.

And my songs now?  Their notes hover over the quilts

and touch down like larkspur petals,

like an eyelash, like moth tracks,

a fabric of air woven upon my harp saying

“Hi, mom.  I will always remember you.”

J. Pratt-Walter, (c) 2018