A Nocturne Love Cantata
She always preferred the sun, of
course, cream lilies, river stones
ground and polished into lucky orbs
carried in her pockets that she would
finger like rosary beads and send up
smoky prayers for answers regarding
love.
But I preferred night symphonies:
bass call of a bullfrog throbbed with
love, the soft wings of a flying owl
stitching meaning in air, the coyote’s
contralto timbre, rain percussions on
hungry leaves, and the wind, the wind
always singing.
These two amours, night and day,
day and night, old message first
relegated to caves, carried by a hungry
sun, nurtured by gravity bound moon, she
sees these things through the eyes of a
woman always walking where the light
streams through her quicksilver fingers, she
possessed of many tongues uttering like an
oracle the encoded message passed from
mother to daughter, giggling school girls, and
I can only try, in my feeble way, to tell her
about the night drama sitting beside
her bedside.
She nods, takes my hand.
I know, she says, I know, and so
will you.
Ralph Monday is Associate Professor of English at Roane State Community College in Harriman, TN., and has published hundreds of poems in over 50 journals. A chapbook, All American Girl and Other Poems, was published in July 2014. A book Empty Houses and American Renditions was published May 2015 by Aldrich Press. A Kindle chapbook Narcissus the Sorcerer was published June 2015 by Odin Hill Press. His website: http://www.ralphmonday.com>