Music for Each Other

Music for Each Other

Europe is burning
Canada is going to wildfire:
and things are everywhere
running out of breath.

But for the moment
we are not playing
in the orchestra
of the apocalypse.

We are not shrinking from the truth
but holding onto something beautiful

as the break in the horizon
offers itself to our eyes—
if only we do not zip them shut.

We are gathered onto a porch
where music is like good rain:

and we can abdicate
the shrapnel in our words
to speak the names of neighbors—

for this moment that
we are not at war
with anything.