I read all your poems,
I hear all your voices.
I hear the songs, the love,
the yearning, the striving,
the growing, the greening,
the moaning and the reaching
and the burning down.
I hear the idiom of the peoples,
of the gathered and the scattered,
I hear big and I hear small,
I hear the murmur and the shout,
the wounded and the brave,
the quick feet and
the electric slide.
I hear the tapping and the drumming
and the chanting and the ringing
syncopation of the high notes,
and the sudden, but long expected,
booming of the bass
beating far away
and closing.
I feel the thunder
that follows on the flash
and the torrent of the words that
are thumping on the roof of the world.
