574: To Overtones; and 576: Romans 12:21

To notes that are and are not ever there,

which sound to some, but not to every soul,

which wear their camouflage upon the air

as they drift outward from the note that’s whole,

I ask that you be less disguised for me,

who yearns to know the spirit that you add

to every piece of music where you be–

how you make happy: happy, and sad: sad.

Dear Overtones, over this head of mine,

whose audience is ever subconscious,

play now to one who has a willing mind,

whose ears have never heard your voices thus.

Spare not now your mysterious motif,

I trust you’re there–help now my unbelief.

~~~

A wicked man, who harbors many faults

in secret, and who, many vices, eats,

all kinds of goodnesses, too, in him salts,

enriching both the tares and, too, the wheats.

And so they grow together, never say-

-ing that the one can cancel out its foe.

But can we really call him wicked? Lay-

-ing good with bad makes goodness, even so.

And see–eventually, the tares that might

have choked the wheat find death at harvest-time.

The man who focuses not on the fight,

but on the sowing, does no vile crime.

Pluck tares if pluck you must, but you’ll have less

when harvest comes and you reap your goodness.