Fred Everett Maus Verse-Virtual 2016 December

December 2016

I am a musician and writer, living in a small house in the woods near Charlottesville, Virginia. Presently I share my home with a small English cocker spaniel and a large 1923 Mason & Hamlin piano. I teach music classes to wonderful college students, and also volunteer teaching meditation in a women's prison and ESL to a recently-arrived refugee. I have published poetry and memoir in Richmond Magazine, Vox Populi, Open Space, and elsewhere.

I Listen to an Adagio by Ravel

Then, I know how to speak
with a single voice, meandering
onward, not clear whether
anyone is listening, pushing on
to the next word and the next,
not with a clear sense of
what comes next, but just
continuing to speak, calmly,
with feeling, with perception,
nothing false, nothing
for effect on myself
or another, just one phrase
and the next and the next.
Later, in a gorgeous glow,
I find that someone was listening,
someone who can repeat
everything word for word.
Who is it who makes me say
what I feel, and who listens,
and who understands so much?
Now, I will open the shades,
the day will come in,
the irreplaceable time that it is.

originally published Vox Populi, June 4, 2015

Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to tell him or her. You might say what it is about the poem that moves you. Writing to the author is the beginning of community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -FF