251 and 252

Not near so many instruments were ours

as bands that could fill up their every chair;

but we could play as many metered bars

as anyone who had the lion’s share.

Our bandstand was made up of just a few,

but I knew those who numbered even less.

A band can be as large as any two

who play their parts with honest faithfulness.

If “fully realized” can’t define you,

then drop the definition on its side.

A single bard can sing a song that’s true

if, to a good Composer, they are tied.

Don’t let semantics stop you from your song.

The one who Wrote it says that you belong.

~~~

It’s many years have wrought his pleasant face,

and many years his heart he covered up

with newer bandages to hide the place

where bled his blood that could fill any cup.

No, not a wound inflicted by a foe.

This blood was his, his own, drawn by his deeds.

But many years he took, descending low,

to know why pride is why his body bleeds.

This is what makes the pleasant older man:

the work of grief—the hatred of the soul.

That work, though bitter where it all began,

is what makes man and woman sweet and whole.

See not, when you must face the wounds you do,

what’s past, but what years forward make of you.