One quiet note
If it is a gift, then
it is in poor taste.
Burdens like this are
unfair somehow. I
keep it only because
it was given to me
and I would not
offend the Giver
by laying it aside.
Sometimes it bangs and clatters
against my insides, howling
to be let go.
If I let it out
it whimpers and fawns
like a beaten cur
who fears its master
but fears freedom more.
It is a fickle friend to me.
Sometimes I could burst
with tremulous arrays
of directionless emotions.
I am stretched like catgut
between urges to belt anyone
or embrace everyone.
Like a guitar string,
I exist poised and tense
ready for someone to
pluck from me some sound,
some tone of existence.
But only I can sound that note.
Other times I am disconsolate
and seek to get in touch
with that fleeting instant
of gratifying resolution.
I search in desperation
for relief. I am
addicted to the pains
of searching, but more
to the pains of finding.
I must become singer and song,
poet and poem, pain and pleasure.
The exhaustion is exasperating.
I am too weak to fight the thing.
Once again I submit.
I surrender. I am possessed.
This muse is a terrible mistress.
Each encounter is a
struggle, sometimes arduous,
sometimes
surprisingly brief, like
a stroke of lightening,
a stroke of genius.
For an instant, then, there is balance
between what I know will happen
and what I know is happening.
I perceive the way,
cued by some subtle change,
and charge off in a new direction.
Everything, then, is different
merely because I am different’
but, if I can catch that moment,
ah, that is sufficient.
I can rest, at which time
I am most vulnerable,
and most in need of vigilance.
I know my rest is hopeless
until, if ever, I become
that one shimmering chord
ringing across eternity.
© Charles O. Todd, III; 1979, 2003
One quiet note
If it is a gift, then
it is in poor taste.
Burdens like this are
unfair somehow. I
keep it only because
it was given to me
and I would not
offend the Giver
by laying it aside.
Sometimes it bangs and clatters
against my insides, howling
to be let go.
If I let it out
it whimpers and fawns
like a beaten cur
who fears its master
but fears freedom more.
It is a fickle friend to me.
Sometimes I could burst
with tremulous arrays
of directionless emotions.
I am stretched like catgut
between urges to belt anyone
or embrace everyone.
Like a guitar string,
I exist poised and tense
ready for someone to
pluck from me some sound,
some tone of existence.
But only I can sound that note.
Other times I am disconsolate
and seek to get in touch
with that fleeting instant
of gratifying resolution.
I search in desperation
for relief. I am
addicted to the pains
of searching, but more
to the pains of finding.
I must become singer and song,
poet and poem, pain and pleasure.
The exhaustion is exasperating.
I am too weak to fight the thing.
Once again I submit.
I surrender. I am possessed.
This muse is a terrible mistress.
Each encounter is a
struggle, sometimes arduous,
sometimes
surprisingly brief, like
a stroke of lightening,
a stroke of genius.
For an instant, then, there is balance
between what I know will happen
and what I know is happening.
I perceive the way,
cued by some subtle change,
and charge off in a new direction.
Everything, then, is different
merely because I am different’
but, if I can catch that moment,
ah, that is sufficient.
I can rest, at which time
I am most vulnerable,
and most in need of vigilance.
I know my rest is hopeless
until, if ever, I become
that one shimmering chord
ringing across eternity.
© Charles O. Todd, III; 1979, 2003
About Chick Todd
American Roman Catholic reared as a "Baptiterian" in Denver Colorado. Now living on Kauaʻi. USAF Vet. Married for over 50 years. Scripture study has been my passion ever since my first "Bible talk" at age 6 in VBS.
