Note to My Readers

Maybe you don’t read poetry.
Maybe this clear singing on paper
is a sound you have heard
only dimly, if ever,
muffled in the dull thuds of rhythm,
singsonged into a rhyming trance.

But my songs are more pennywhistle than opera,
more slow drum than symphony.
And if you’ve ever breathed in
the grey mist of a wet November
and thought it a fine day,

if you’ve ever wondered
what the mice must think,
or dreamt of speeches from the dead,

if you would swear
by all things holy
that stones hum to themselves
on hot, still days,

if beauty to you is
the cracked calluses of gnarled hands
and love, the sweetness of silence,

then you already know
what I do.

Renee Carter Hall