787 and 788

I couldn’t sing today. You were too close

beside me, just one other in between.

The words couldn’t come out, despite my most

valiant efforts. Naught could intervene.

You were too close, and all the notes too high,

you would have heard but head voice only. No,

I could not let you hear me sound so shy,

as I sound when I reach for falsetto.

So you thought that I shirked the song. That cross

is one that I must bear until the day

that I can tell you that mine was the loss

for not being able to pray that way.

But prayers were offered—be assured of that:

I prayed you could not tell from where you sat.

~~~

A truth unsaid still beats its heart in time
with wisdom. Be not by mere sound now moved.
Take not what’s said as heaven’s only sign —
— true heaven shows when signposts are removed.

A wretched dog lived in a wretched slum,
and heard not but what transients would say,
who saw him not, nor anything he’d done
to make his wretched slum not so that way.

But one man stayed, and long enough to see
the wretched dog attempt to love the place.
And he chose not to leave, because, said he,
‘I have not seen a more beautiful face

than this one, who, despite all that’s been said,
still tends the wretched place God made his bed.’