Return to Harmony

Scruffy shoes
Scrape their weary ballads
Across the train station floor

Ballads
That voice the melodies
Of the paths of their drifting feet

But I
Cannot know
What other paths sing

This song
Is not their anthem
But my own wandering tune

My tune
Once fused roving melodies
Into a hymn of resilient harmony

But the enemy
Pierced my perfect tune
With the tattoo of falling flats and sharps

A racing scale
He forced our feet to run
To shelter from his blitz of stabbing staccatos

Then, one day
Split apart each fragile measure
With lyrics that shrunk my voice into nothing

Lost lyrics
Echoed the muddled melody of my mind
Through that mess of meandering soles

Our songs
Clashed at every sound yet played the same tune
Of  upheaval into this chorus of unknown end

 

All voices
Huddled in a heap of disharmony
As each note played along the railway

My scruffy shoes
Now beat a solo rhythm
Not knowing if they can ever return to harmony

Katie Sorensen