Sweetness

“Please stop.”
Plea from your lips.
Prayer from your heart.
Request from somewhere within
you can’t point at and say,
“…there, right there.” It’s what you take
from the mobile, fluid flutters
within. All you have, really.
Informal; a beggar’s alms, asked for
in a whisper, infrequently
but urgently.

“Please stop.”
It is not heard well, or at all, evidently.
No sign of it. In fact
it might as well not have been said.
You don’t even know who
was supposed to have heard it
or who then would have said,
with shoulders up and then down,
“suit yourself…” You might
have been free then. You might have
have heard silence within
and then, not knowing what else
could be said, have said nothing
but would have wordlessly broken
into song; melody only, no words.

“Please stop,”
but there is nothing to stop.
A maple tree, or an oak
singing; a screeching jay
singing; others unknown,
singing. You, songster
of the common man,
trying to remember words:
“like this…no, more like…” You try.
You fail. You try again. You fail
again. Left alone in roadside dirt,
old gravel, occasionally
a candy wrapper.

Sweetness discarded —
that’s you,
of course. You don’t care.
There is still sweetness
out there: wordless,
unceasing sweetness. You
just need to find it;
shut up, shut down;
suck the sugar of it;
let its music play you off.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T