Voice

Susan Culver

Spring, and he sees it all as fences,

prisons: the mountains, the fields, the acres

of empty songs. Spring, and he sees the girl,

the caged bird, thinks he can quiet her,

hold her words in the steel grip of his hands, he

who speaks of god as a sentence, another fence,

he, who has miles of them,

who would make a glorious mourning of silence.

Spring, and you remember me. I'm the girl

with the patchwork story, with a whisper

she sent to the moon just to see

if anyone was listening. You remember me

when I was laughing, the sheer silver of it

strong enough to climb the cliff's edge,

to meet the day at the top of the world,

to ride it back again.

Spring, and you remember what I said,

that a voice is a sunbeam sharp and slender,

an elusive butterfly with dreams for wings

that cannot be held down, will not be possessed.

Last night I dreamt I was a small slice of moon,

that for the first time in my life, you played for me

the sound of my own voice and I danced.

Spring, and you remember me, God.

You remember me.