photo by Man Ray

Somewhere the notes fell
from our music — a dark indigo
pooling around the polished
sunlit surfaces of our instruments
Even the birds in the fig tree
seem to notice the hushed tones
careful steps outside
each other’s rooms. They chirp a forlorn
adagietto doloroso to our movements

For every missing note
there is a deeper
timbre that cannot be expressed
that will not rest easy on the staff

When did we stop speaking without words?

Tonight the wind plays a concert
in the trees and I miss the mellifluous
tones of our worn and beaten
Stradivarius. I am bowed to your strings
in a lonely fugue. The ghost
of your hand breathes
against my cheek as the clock ticks
on the mantle, a metronome of memory
whose pendulum I long to adjust.
I can almost hear your feet stamp
against the doormat as you shake
the rain from your coat
but it is only the rumble
of distant thunder

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Artist Statement: Art has a unique ability, even responsibility, to wake people up, to help them engage emotionally with fearful and disturbing subjects, and hopefully, stir them to action. Pablo Neruda said, ‘Poetry is bread’ and a tool for justice. I believe language is powerful and that poetry can indeed play a role in justice-making and social change.

Author’s Bio: Gayle J. Greenlea is an award-winning poet and counselor for survivors of sexual and gender-related violence. Her poem, “Wonderland”, received the Australian Poetry Prod Award in 2011. She shortlisted and longlisted for the Fish Poetry Prize in 2013, and debuted her first novel, Zero Gravity, at the KGB Literary Bar in Manhattan in 2016. Her work has been published in St. Julian Press, Rebelle Society, A Time to Speak, Astronomy Magazine and The Australian Health Review.

Please find author’s inspiration with “GOP Senator Blocked Gun Control Bill,” Business Insider, November 2019. 

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