A Place Beyond a Song

After we younglings
in choir loft
intone our last song
close our hymnals
we wander down uneven steps
kneel beside statues
lit with flickering candles
burning with intention
melting so silent
smell dripping wax
just listening

After awhile
a few fidget wiggle
reinvent disappear
to backyard tree forts
Box Car adventures
rowdy hop-scotch
follies that bedevil

But the rest of us silent
innocent wonder
not even a fragment
of hymn begs attention
the rest of us
so quiet are here
kneeling between
the shallows of the mind
and the deep connection
to the unknown
just listening

Marianne Lyon has been a music teacher for 43 years. After teaching in Hong Kong, she returned to the Napa Valley and has been published in various literary magazines and reviews. Nominated for the Pushcart Award 2016, she has spent time teaching in Nicaragua. She is a member of the California Writers Club and Solstice Writers in St. Helena, California. She is an Adjunct Professor at Touro University in Vallejo, California. She was awarded the Napa Country Poet Laureate 2021 title.