Many Kinds of Grief

A Gift Returned

By Glenda C. Beall

 

I hear him singing on the deck,

That rich baritone that won me

the first day we met.

Like Sinatra’s fans I mellowed

as I listened to those tones.

 

Music-making was his talent

taken for granted like breathing

and the beating of his heart until

the surgeon’s knife nicked a nerve.

 

We both wept, losing more

than if he’d lost a limb.

His voice is who he is,

has always

been.

 

The purple wreath of grief hung

over us a year or more until

one day the notes rang true

above the strum of his guitar,

a lovely instrument restored.