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by McFee
The
Tunnel
Old
Baseball
found under a Bush
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The Whistler
At first I think it's in my head,
this unearthly melody I can't identify,
but then I realize, no,
it's all around me, notes filling the quad
like drops of water will fill a basin
to the top and beyond.
I look around for the source
and finally see a tiny man
standing on the steep steps of Main Hall,
arms folded behind him, head back, whistling
with astonishing volume
a fluid tune I still don't recognize.
He seems to be Chinese:
maybe he's homesick and this song
takes him back to that night by the river,
her hair in the moonlight
flowing over his hands like a black current…
Or maybe it helps him forget.
Or maybe he's just making it up
as he goes along, a breathless improvisation
here in the American twilight
that has nothing to do with anything
but itself, notes following notes,
their round sounds flowing off the bricks.
He stands still but sways
forward and backward and sideways,
a rapt broadcasting through light drizzle
to no one but me
I find when I look around for another person,
to prove this isn't a dream.
But so what if it is?
It's a good long one and I needed a song
as much as he needed to pour one out,
this migratory warbler
still whistling as I walk away,
raindrops kissing my skin like quarter notes.
from Earthly
Hear
Michael McFee read
this poem.
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© Copyright 2000 Endeavors magazine, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. All rights reserved.
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