Music to the Silent Spirit (poem)

Music to the Silent Spirit

Each time a scale was shed

The poor belabored beast reshod

And every time the winch was turned

A sleeve-end drawn and bunched

The chain’s links locked

A shocking tragedy

Unwanted weight dislodged with a careless tread

Slumps from the precipice and polishes

the surface like the jeweler’s grindstone

Rusted iron rings and russet autumn leaves

reflect in pools calm as glass where spirits dwell

in depths

So they have said

And nature knows the pattern that she weaves

in every rock that falls and manmade thing

that urge aside the current

And make the river sing her

Music to the silent spirit

On a pebbled shoal a woman stands

Water birds speckled brown and white

Plainly in sight but unseen

Until they dip below the water

To herself she says, “If only others suffered,

the way I suffer.”

Music to the Silent SpiritMusic to the Silent Spirit

(2015, Stephanie Foster)