Karen Kowalski Singer         

Sonata
            Chapman Falls, December 2004
1st Prize Poetry Contest 2005
                                       

Who sings, the rushing water or the stones?
My heart’s a yearning harp, my ear a hollow drum.
The wind plays the marimba on my bones.

I catalog the voices, layers, rhythms, tones
as Eight Mile River’s stony water strums
the song of rushing water over stones.

Wood or wind? A tall pine cello groans.
From whose soul is music spun
when the wind plays the marimba on my bones?

Silent mist, like spirits who’ve flown,
lifts like smoke above the white churning hum
that sounds as water rushes over stones.

The pulse of the torrent, the wind’s saxophone—
I want to hold this leaping chaos under my thumb
as the wind plays the marimba on my bones.

It’s not a lullaby the rocks and river croon—
joyous music, wild and sad; my heart’s unstrung.
I don’t care who sings, the water or the stones.
The wind plays the marimba on my bones.