A Man's Song

I paused to stand upon the ice in the beaver's meadow
where he had dammed a brook and made a pond
and now cloud-white ice rimmed the sky-blue body
in the last days of February.
Listening to the brook babble on the other side of the dam
where motion held back stasis,
I suddenly heard a man's song on the wind.

These were not the bass notes of creation
rumbling deep below the surface of everything,
nor the tenor that lifted up the heavens,
but a baritone of life - a mix of honey and tears -
a rising note of the cycle of birth to death.

When I turned to listen
there was one more note in the air -
a fatherly intonement of responsibility -
weighted and worthy -
then it was gone
and there was only the silent frozen pond to one side of me
and to the other,
the brook talking on its journey away.

YouTube: https://youtu.be/0RPQQJ7NS3c

Audio: https://anchor.fm/honest-chaos/episodes/A-Mans-Song-erm8kb