image
the breath of angels

some say the music still plays
in the empty doorway, dark with time
past ten thousand yesterdays
and melodic songs with words that rhyme

only in silence can you hope to hear
the forgotten songs that used to play
while harshly made noises of a distant year
chase the haunting songs away

in the midst of badly peeling paint
and faded red bricks crumbling into dust
and a tarnished statue of a captive saint
whose flowing robe has turned to rust

i felt a song begging for time
to be released into the waiting air
back into the heavens on a spiral climb
whispering to angels everywhere

in time all singers have surely died
all songs returned to their pillow clouds
with the purest music buried deep inside
where vagrant noise is never allowed

’til now the lonely cry of music’s death
rests upon six waiting guitar strings
while the song has taken its final breath
and in heaven, a host of angels sing

© 2012, tolbert. All rights reserved.

avatar tolbert (24 Posts)

Born in Virginia and raised in North Carolina, I have Southern roots that were extracted when I lived close enough to Berkeley in the late sixties and early seventies to taste the influences of the pursuit of freedom. As a student at San Jose State University I watched William Kuntsler expound on the values of free speech and he offered more education in an hour, on the lawn by the baseball diamond than most professors gave in a full semester. Married for thirty years, I have two grown daughters and three grandkids,..and two Boston Terriers.


2 Comments

  1. avatar
    Larry Conley
    April 22, 2012 at 3:01 pm ·

    Tolbert,

    What a poem of memory and longing! At least that is how it struck me.

    “i felt a song begging for time
    to be released into the waiting air
    back into the heavens on a spiral climb
    whispering to angels everywhere”

    I hope the song breaks forth and summons our better angels; if we ever needed them before, we need them more now. Perhaps the music that still plays can bring them back to the fore.

    Larry
    Larry Conley recently posted..The Republic Born AnewMy Profile

  2. avatar
    Cher Duncombe
    April 23, 2012 at 9:42 am ·

    “in time all singers have surely died
    all songs returned to their pillow clouds
    with the purest music buried deep inside
    where vagrant noise is never allowed”

    Tolbert, this is achingly beautiful. The image, as in all those you include, speaks volumes and is, of itself, beautiful.
    Cher Duncombe recently posted..The Epidemic of Debit Card FraudMy Profile

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