Echoes from the stones

When I could travel I would grasp the walls...the halls of home,
or Roman stone, still standing beneath my fingers, the reasonance of centuries around.

When I could get out:

I sang to 42nd street
Tie and tails and sharp black shoes.

Or ancient melodies in naves or sanctuaries.

Hymms or choruses, new and old.

Painfully common or deep and old and true.

Those melodies are restless still, looking for an exit...

And so I hum at home when no one hears...
Or wonder if they've heard it true, and think me mad.
Outside in the hall, as they wonder what the poor woman's doing there.
Held inside, denied connection with the people or communion with the other singers, past and gone or present near....
It must subsist as working noise, or vocal prayer alone.

It is not time for requiem, or worse yet stillness...
The voice still sings.