night music

night music

"I am a dance—play up there"

-Walt Whitman, The Sleepers

a winter storm

tunes its woodwinds

and its brass

and you and I sit

by the window

our children dance

with no provocation

to tunes their ears alone

hear

they are motion

and music given

to unbridled rhythms

alive touching air

with every inch

of skin of hair

of spirit

you and I are silence,

ancient steps

unwinding into stasis

somewhere inside

clouds,

begin a gentle swell

among the pines

snow, spilling over eaves

in glittering moonlight

don't wake the children—

rouse us

with your music