Walking in Sound
Life is pleasant.  Life is good.  Virginia Woolf, The Waves



A simple life is not quiet

take an August afternoon

on a street near your home

tumbling red roses

sap rushing everywhere and

birds telling tales in trees

going on and on and on and on

a blue river seems to swoon

between the clouds

people breathe in a house

a dog twitches

once or twice a lost soul

rustles the curtains looking

for a way in or out

as the dead do when it’s hot

all the seas in the world twirl

swirl around you

and then there’s the roaring

spin of the earth

you have to press a palm flat

on your chest and jump

into the regular thud of yourself

the children next door look up

mouths open

sighing at something

as you walk home

in the summer air

a grotto of sound

irregular and

solemn

sings to you

all the way

Detroit poet, Suzanne Scarfone, is a creative writing professor with the Afghan Women’s Writing Project, as well as writer-in-residence with InsideOut Literary Arts Project. She has published widely, produced two music and poetry CD’s, and is currently completing a song cycle entitled Wild and Wordless.