The Grapevine Art & Soul Salon

Presentations: Barbara Knott

Where Orpheus Sings

On the side of a mountain
my father stands with finger
and thumb lightly resting on the brim
of an old fedora
that curves against his palm
his mind serene from all I can tell
there in the land of shades
as I, in my dream, stand higher up
inside a room with a too-bright light
and through a glass pane

watch him in his place outside.
Drawing close in the twilight
come denizens of wilderness
and woods: tiger, snake, squirrel
spider, butterfly, beetle
owl, crow and loon,
familiars who attend to my father
and he to them in a reverie that is
soundless, at least to my human ear.

I long for the cool moist glass
to hold me, but curiosity hushes fear.
What is taking place out there
in the dark where Nature’s creatures
gather, circled and silent, gazing, rapt?
A mutual listening reveals a murmuring
under the silence, song-like or seeking
sound, searching for words, and in my own
quiet sigh, I hear myself thinking:
Turn out the light.

Open the door into the night. Trust
the moon and stars to show what
can be seen and, below all, listen
at this place between two worlds
where Orpheus sings the cry of the panther
the trill of the whippoorwill
and the song of two-footers who hold
in their imagination and in their hands
what will make, for good or ill,
worlds upon worlds upon worlds.