Signal Fire

I saw the two of you
in an ocean of clothes racks
at the local all-American
buy-everything-you-don't-need-in-one-place
store.
Your hands were talking, making a series of motions
incongruous in the melee of half-priced shirts,
detergent and light-bulbs.
Your surroundings were not in keeping
with the grace your hands were making.
They leapt about,
dancing to music that fell on my deaf ears.
Even though my reason points
to the contrary-
I knew you could never be signing such
banal statements as,
"I like this shirt."
or "Let's get lunch".
No, I knew you were saying,
"Last night, alone, I heard the stars sing,
and I thought I would die from joy."
And "The lamp of God is dim today,
but still, my heart can love him, and him only."
Suddenly I had a vision of silence and clarity-
across the giant store, a silent cacophony-
each of us, participating in
an unchoreographed ballet of hands,
instead of the awful noise
our choir of voices made.

Comments

[Adam]

That is beautiful.

[Caleb]

What Adam said.

[marty]

Man. I wish I had written that.
I think I need to get away from these psalms, their sucking any other writing straight out of me.

Thanks for this poem. I'm really jealous.

[cheek]

Robert Frost talked about the sound and rhythm of language being as important if not moreso than the meaningful content of signs (words). Your poem makes me think of that and of listening to Pablo Neruda's poems being read in the original. It really gets to the heart of beauty like literature rarely does.
Bravo.

[greg]

You are amazing.