In response to the song I will never sing with you

Most days our business is the silent walk past each other,
a game of uncaught  eyes and the noisy prattle of vine-ripe din.

We pluck from this garden of rhythmless rhythms
our tongues,  to relentlessly repair the toneless harmonies,
to make the music of somewhere else - of the bright
son daydreaming his mother's cookies on the bus

• of the farmer's daughter aching for the grind of cornmeal,

the student's thumb against the pencil-pocked paper - of the bum
punctuating the endless beaches with his lazy tune, and
the wind-chime ice that recites the lyrics of this every-winter.

We consider each other as prepositions marking out our direction
and relation to the things will see and do.

We mash the dust of the highways into the sauce of our will, until someone becomes
theothers and they are the they who say,

"I need. I want. I am. Look at me. Listen to me.
I am the great and important
voice of no-one-could-be-more-special-than me."

Today, our song is the plain rebuttal of the bite of January wind.
Our song is the celebration of those that give, of those that gave
and died for this day. Today, we sing their names as Hosana,

Blessed are they. who prayed for us. who built our house. who paved our path.

Our song is the celebration of what has passed - the unblessed who dared
to love. to dream. to fight on alone when the stars went out.

Today, we sing of despair for the gifts lost.

Now it is quiet,
do not look at me
Walk away.