Old Man's Song

"Only the death in my eyes,"
the gray man assured,
mounted in his hickory rocking-chair,
"can keep the breeze of life
from blowing in me. And that's why
I keep them closed."

He let his mouth close
around his last words and began
to blindly hum a guttural hymn
I did not recognize. The man
rose his arms into the room
with flamenco patience
shifting his ragged weight
forward in the chair. Worried, I
sat opened mouth with my eyes
shinning across the room
toward him. The hickory rocking-chair
lurched forward, tilting the hungry frame
of the man out onto his bent legs.

The man then rose his voice
as he did his arms, first
into his high neck then
into his alarm-mouth,
wailing, with his lungs
behind him, some holy song.

And I started clapping along,
staring, nearly drooling,
at my hands which had
naturally slid into the rhythm
without my noticing when.

And he sang for what seemed like hours.