For a singer seeking her own voice
by Gail
The instinctive lark, weaving her voice
around those of her companions,
does not know this note of loss and longing;
her programmed expression always
unlocks the buds, unearths the sun.
But she whose voice nightly climbs
another's mountain, knowing that frozen
bone grows more twisted through all
the years of burial, probes the mud
and stone fragments of her mind
with the light of an exploding sun in her eyes.
When the excavated form burns her
strong fingers with its unexpected shape,
the task of extracting and molding
the stiff marrow in her own way will begin
in the still darkness that she has sought
and found.
