When Singing is Called For

A long day working in both gardens ends beneath the apple tree, sharing a little wine. Swallows at dusk, lovely in their hunger. The moon rises off shadowed hills at the foot of which the river answers every unasked question ever. Where could I go that Chrisoula didn't first make safe the way? You can only hold the hand of the dying once before the stakes clarify and the work begs you not to take it behind the barn. The teacher becomes the student yet it is the student who makes the teacher possible at all. Oh, what do I know, who wasted so many years on both ends of the same string? Yesterday at the fair three sheep watched me watch them and when I came back an hour later they rose off their knees to greet me. Of course I made arrangements with their owner to visit them! How quickly we pass through. And how easily our infirmities dissolve . . . I used to be the man who thought there was a cross out there with my name on it. I used to think pain was a privilege. But those sheep are neither lost nor confused. I sing when singing is called for now, and my tongue is the light of the world.