Poem

For the Artists

I know you just want to be a flute
the wind sings through
to make a melody
or an intricate mistake
like the existence of crystals
in nature, drifting as flakes
to cover a field
in a clean white blanket
or inside a rock,
the tiny, glittering caves.

In other words, you just want to be
a structure
with the beauty
already
built into it.

But I’d guess, like me
you’ve walked through a few
gardens in heavy shoes
accused friends & lovers of things they did
& sins they didn’t do
panicked awake at 3am
to sit alone in the kitchen
trying to sip breaths in
past your choked throat.

Still, I hear a song
alive in you
when the joy sets in along
your spine and through
the fields and caves of your body.
Somewhere within
a tree, a willow
rustles as a cool wind
from some other world begins to blow.

by Amanda Beth Peery