This poem I am posting is like the pennies that nice people throw into those red containers that salvation army bell ringers stand by, singing Christmas carols badly out of tune

I support this blog. I thought I would show my support by posting a poem. It is about attending a moving musical experience with your best friend. Sorry if it is boring to you because you weren't there. Sorry that you weren't there. Oh yeh, this is Danielle.


Lost in the Trees

There were rumors of live music tonight. We paid
the fee after an antemortem debate
in the parking lot a funeral home.
We would stay if it cost five dollars or less. What about six?
And suddenly, there is an eleven piece folk orchestra playing
on the Tatami mat stage of a Japanese style tea house.
We bargained six dollars down to five, less
than one dollar per instrumentalist.
An Australian man with a prominent nose, who
would end up singing vocals, bend down and told us,
"We are going to need a little more room up front". Still,
we never expected tiny violinists dressed in revival linens.
The leather boots of the accordion player growing roots,
anchoring her to the stage, so she had to bend
at the hips to hit the bells with her mallets.
I did not expect the involuntary sway of my hips
to mime the rhythm of a seated listener's ponytail
in mutual understanding, that their silver-maned drummer
is a conductor on the Northeast Corridor line.
Tonight's Special Tea is a draught of their
chilling choral harmonies, mouths open
like a family of young owls.
The synchronization of their bowing
their picking and
the depression of their finger tips
on nodules of shined metal was
the antithesis of mechanical.
Precision approaching the intrinsically human
reverberation of the heartbeat.
Music to act beautifully to. And she did.
Eyes still locked on the tuba's gleaming rim,
she seamlessly shifted her grey wool coat
beneath her visitor's head, a high-mannered charmer
from Rhode Island, who was unknowingly satiated
by her invisible ability to be everything
to everyone
all at once.