Poems

The Singing Rooms
Poems by Jeanne Minahan
Music by Jennifer Higdon
Three Windows: Two Versions of the Day
Three windows offer two versions of the day,
the first: cool and sweet, a blue cascade
of watered light,
the second: bright heat barely held back
by the venetian blind.
Inside, the blue falls across
the small kitchen (a breeze
at your back), and angles
into the living room where
the table and two chairs swim.
The couch, the desk, bookshelves,
the bed, they submit
each morning to the thin cloths of light
that drape, linger and slide
across them; its shape their shape.
Both are here, though you
cannot be:
that heat, that long shade of blue.
The Interpretation of Dreams
If I told you my dream
(the one on a boat),
if I told you how I read
your dream with a cello:
a new laugh
an old hush.
Things Aren’t Always
Not every newborn cries in hunger;
not every dog barks in alarm.
Musicians, on a whim,
break our hearts,
lovers take the blame.
Confession
Once I slept all night without dreaming
in the body of a small summer flower:
buttercup, yellow and damp,
circling me with warmth.
And I’ve taken tears from an earthen bowl,
clay pressed in a curve of bone:
a basin borne of rib and hip.
I drank and sang in sweet drunkenness.
Once I dressed in luminous dust
and set myself spinning in the Pleiades
just to be unseen among the seen.
I admit I’ve listened to the whistling of God,
kissed lips that were not mine or yours.
If I tell you these things now,
you must hold them in your palms
as I have seen you hold water:
cupped and uncontained.
Give me such forgiveness
as that:
liquid, poured out,
uncondemned
for being so clear.
History Lesson
How brief the pause
between despair and comfort
How eternal.
How small the space
between the window and frame.
How cold the wind.
[Teach me which of the stars have shifted.
Tell me where error crept in. Show me
the overlooked weed, infection, accounting mistake.
Adjust my glasses, hearing, fingertips.
Point me to the abandoned faith.]
When the day dims
light the largest fire, cliff high.
And when they tell the story
of these sad times
Remember
we lit that fire
to spare the other ships
these treacherous rocks.
A Word with God
An áit a bhfuil do chroí is ann a thabhaifas do chosa thú.
“Your feet will bring you to where your heart is” (Irish Proverb)
And, finally we ask ourselves,
where did we spend our days, whose voice
turned our heads, hushed, thrilled,
entered, lingered, left us?
(Standing on a far shore,
uncertain of the hour or day
in a quiet not quiet.)
I walk towards you, I walk away;
my feet pull me back.
Wild One, your magnetic love
draws me (polar eclipse and warm),
you are the paradox towards which
I tend, you are the ache,
I don’t need to speak,
you are the name of all names.


