We Came Back

by Tammy Stone

A prior world of raucous sounds we
Made, riots of clanging bells but also

Hushed caress.  Where each tenderness
Melted like snow a river gone by, anger

Whipped loud, and everything that could,
Happened.  But it still wasn’t enough, so

Here we are, marking our cold re-entry in
Soundless, everlasting space, coursing

Through the warring bits, all of it a kind
Of alchemy we’re not here to understand.

We’re here to listen, though we don’t.
It can only start from here, the beating

Heart. The rhythm of palpation, how we
Wandered for years to get here.  Times

I rest in that pause, shivering, bone dry,
Waiting for an outstretched hand. This is

How I learned music can be touched. The
Sweet sounds that have made us and the

Ache of memories trailing through Time.
We are ruffled and ravaged. The world as

Sonorous Remembrance, reverberating in a
Thousand ways a feared, desired emptiness.

I try as hard as I can to listen to each note,
Devastating, beautiful, inchoate and true.