Found  by Nancy Schatz Alton

“I am not a saint/ Because I keep trying to be a sound, something/ You will remember/ Once you’ve lived long enough not to believe in heaven.” -Jericho Brown, from “Deliverance”

I’ve noticed if I hum

I’m closer to being in tune

But I don’t need to reach the right note

To be happy in song.

 

I don’t need to be a good dancer

To lose myself in movement

To remember the way

We used to sweat on the dance floor

Losing ourselves, together.

 

I don’t understand why

My daughters don’t dance

At school dances.

Don’t they need to lose themselves

Completely in the beat?

 

Maybe it’s because they’ve already

Located themselves

Found a pocket to belong to

Who am I kidding

I can’t look from the outside

And know why they don’t dance

With full abandon

In a smelly gym.

 

All I know is that

We all belong to the sound

Maybe it’s as simple as

The fact that they can sing in tune

And they do, together and apart,

With friends and alone

Making music beyond humming

Similar to yet unlike

All of my limbs

That find freedom within a song

Even now

Alone in my living room.