Inspired by Canto [2]

Oceans belt out a bass line, rocks beat on drums, forests sing melodiesI will go to the bank by the wood and jump in the river of sound as it rushes around metossing me onto rocks, dragging me under the surface;A rush of birdsong and rustling leaves and chattering crowdsWhat is it to read, to brush light fingers over the poet’s expression?What is it to read, but to trace shapes curving and cutting across a page with careful eyes,looped into some attempt to bind thoughts into pages?

Speak, listen, I beg of you. We speak, we talk, we yell, we shout,We cry out, shrieks of joy and pain and fear, signals into the landscape, flares in the dark woods,We laugh, each cachinnation dripping with more ink than any pen ever could,We sing, vaulting our passion up through the ceilings of cathedrals with crescendos and chords.

Speak, listen, I beg of you!Take recumbent words and lift them up,Fold poems into paper airplanes,Throw them as hard as you can off tremendous mountain ledges,Hear the chorus…join the chorus, this indeed is music!

Speak! Listen!Sift noise from melody, untangle the knotted constellations from strands of little lightbulbs.We are spurred on by a cacophony of expression,Every din impresses upon us some world we have never before seen,The rumble of a passing train carries with it every place it has ever been,The song of a sparrow in the morning urges us to wake and to live,The laughter of children reminds us to smile.

Take a paper poem and fold it, tear it, tape it, glue it.Morph it into the rumble of a train or the song of a sparrow or the laughter of children,Let words be loud, Let emotions screech and holler,Let the poet's words not lie still forever,Take their hands and pull them off of the paper and twirl them around,Dance with someone’s thoughts, once pressed onto the page, Now into which we breathe new life, waking up some sleeping ink, which gasps for the air of our lungs.