For Catherine, Mutt, and Oscar

This is a very late assignment, a poem for the unholy trinity.


Amid the cacophony of adolescence
and the braying of those who know it all
silence hides and wisdom plays hooky.
Voices clamor for our attention
as we hone the art of selective deafness.

Amidst the clatter, interludes
cross the E-ether and bring me news:
Truth lives, tenderness can teach,
warmth heals, words redeem.

In Santa Maria Novella, not the grand duomo
but the little Florentine church still a parish,
I listened to glorious voices that filled the nave
a chorus of angels, I guessed, or a roomful
of professional opera singers.

As I rounded a corner I found the source:
two nuns and an elderly housewife
bent over the ancient words
singing out in harmonious
praise of life. Each voice
a distinct and beautiful instrument.

The chiesa swelled with song
and for a Philadelphia minute
we shared—singers and audience—
A waking of wonder.

Your voices have lifted me
from chalkdust and red-pen solitaire
to another plain where sound becomes sense
and sweet honesty needs no armor.
I have listened to your tenor,
Your baritone, your mezzo-soprano,
As the notes grew stonger
And you honed your voices
On the razorstrops of disaster.
You are not a chorus but a kind of scat trio—
Riffing on despair and hope,
Typing out a rhythm
that carries beyond your cells.
And when you invite me in
I find a harmony that stills
All the noises of the day.