by Margaret Walther

when I was a child, the night sky spoke
as your pipes and louvres do—

the hypnotic call of a falling star—
open my hand

touch—
threads wind time’s stairway toward

church, my mother plays
                                                                          rock of ages, let me hide

           the music searches further, further
circling the labyrinth of evening

lost—
whirls through nebulae, spiral galaxy—

she is gone—
will I ever hear her voice again—

the manuscript of mourn, unfurling percussive scroll, the bass so loud
god must be speaking in the burning—

you give no answers, only images—
portals of stars

minotaur tears inside
black holes—

and now, a Bach fugue—
the stately rhythms of mathematical solace

chords, their fractal certainties—
thrum down onto sorrow’s roof—

 

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Margaret Walther is a retired librarian from the Denver metro area and a past president of Columbine Poets, an organization to promote poetry in Colorado. She has poems published or forthcoming in many journals, including Connecticut Review, anderbo.com, Quarterly West, Naugatuck River Review, Fugue, The Anemone Sidecar, Phoebe, and Nimrod. Margaret was the Many Mountains Moving 2009 Poetry Contest Winner. Additionally, she has received two Pushcart nominations, and her poems published in the online journal In Posse Review in 2010 were selected by Web del Sol for its e-SCENE best of the Literary Journals.