How Do You Sing?
How do you sing
intolerable injustice?
Do you hold a note as long
as a young tree cut down?
Do you summon a cry
as guttural
as a hole in the earth
refusing burials?
Do you let your voice quiver
like leaves
heaving their burden
of blood?
Do you wail in descending chords
like a woman
on a road
behind a coffin?
Do you open your throat wide enough
to express
all unnecessary
suffering?
Do you let the last line
trail off
because the end of the song
is unwritten?
Do you laugh, as you imagine
crescendos of beautiful children
rising wave upon wave upon wave
to emancipation?
©Margery Parsons
