The Torrent

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.