Like Words, Like Music

Some have heard the music in the trees
that has no words, but words they have
more than music, and so they sing.

Others have heard the words of love
that make no sound, but sounds they have
more than silence, and so they speak.

For them, there's crackling music in a fire,
a round in the rapids, shimmery chords
midair, and a drumming in the earth.

What's worth more than our poverty
that needs such speech and song as poets
and lovers are helpless not to utter?

Lovers have a music in their heads,
the words by heart, and could not love long
were they less heartfelt, less headstrong.

Midsummer's a confluence of time
and passion, when those halfway to matrimony
labor to compose their love symphony.

Shakespeare knew his meters and strewed them
along the garden path and in the wood
that those who needed most to hear them could.

Lovers, though you be neither courtly nor English,
yet you have other traits worth a show,
so sing and play together, for you never know.

~Marvin Bell




Titania and Oberon by Josephine Wall