he used to get strength from her voice,
an almost religious strength, a biblical conviction;
and the days moved steadily from daybreak to dusk
as he listened to that dulcet sound,
imagining another time, away from the sun-dark desert,
closer to the ocean.but after awhile, the records wore thin,
and that beautiful voice, part sparrows song, part siren call
could not be recovered again.
the day he finally lost her voice, time settled into him,
greying hair and beard, wrinkles in once-youthful skin.
but in the springtime, when the river swelled with the rain,
when it knocked loose stone and sediment,
and quenched the thirst of leaf and grain,
he heard a song that sounded so like that of his love,
no longer a sparrow or siren, now just a dove.
she settled in the old oak tree,
and from those thick, heavy branches,
she sang to him from morning to night,
drawing him out from his earthen cave and into the light:
a blinding sun that colored the grays,
no longer a man but a boy half his age.