Song
"She sang a song without any questions, full of color and joy"
-Elisa Kleven
It isn't easy to sing that way,
since song suggests word and all
words can be questions.
And she was not naïve.
She wasn't singing without knowing
why we worry about any joy
asking us to accept it
without inquisition.
And yet her song seemed
satisfied to suggest its colors
proved how natural it also is
to sing. Rainbows are real:
though no more believable
than killing storms, no less
so, either.
Her singing said suspend
your doubts, breathe in belief,
make your very listening a prayer
of thanks someone can still sing
this way, and you will co-create
these colors,
join this joy.
Joe Benevento’s work has appeared in almost three hundred publications, including Bilingual Review, U.S. Catholic, Dappled Things and Poets & Writers. He has had fourteen books of poetry and prose published, including: Expecting Songbirds: Selected Poems, 1983-2015. He teaches creative writing and American literature at Truman State University.
Amethyst Review 