Exile.
(a contemplation of Psalm 137)

By the river
I sit—
a water that does not know me
moving past.

My hands are still.

I saw a mountain,
climbed until breath thinned
and sound would not return.
I took the strings there,
played what I could.
Nothing stayed.

So I descended.

Beside this strange river,
instruments hang in the willows,
suspended.
Wood and gut gone slack.

Sing, they say.

I look for the tree
where I hung my voice.
It is not there.
How can I sing
when the words are right but
the air is thin?