There is just one apple on the tree
It isn’t like I’d hoped it’d be.
Yesterday when there was still you
I looked, and I swear that I saw two.
Maybe a wandering white tail deer
came in the night to make it even more clear
and left me just one, a spartan no less,
to remind me of my new loneliness.
There is just one oar leaning against the wall,
what of our plans for paddles in the fall,
with the reeds grown high in a winding maze;
we were to follow old waterways.
Maybe a hovering dragonfly
will rest on a cattail and wonder why
there is no clamoring at the shore
of two in a canoe with each an oar.
Now there is just one pillow on the bed
where a solitary someone lays her head,
a stack of books meant to be read aloud
closed and dusty awaiting a crowd.
Maybe a spider in a high corner
keeps his tiny eye on the still mourner
and waits for the other to slip under the cover
and relight the dark candle lit between lovers
and replay the melody made by two lovers.
I heard this song on The Vinyl Cafe this week and thought it was beautiful. The lyrics are clever; though they rhyme, they are completely unexpected–I find this quality particularly attractive since the first rhyme that pops into an author’s head is rarely their best. The lines, “a stack of books meant to be read aloud | closed and dusty awaiting a crowd” does not seem to be either the image or the rhyme that one freestyles on a napkin; they show a patience. The images throughout this song are vivid and the “maybes” tell a mournfully reflective story. Poetry is not dead; it sits in song.