Susan Gibson Poet Free verse

The Unfinished Symphony

The record plays -
            sounds of love; words that touch the heart.
I reach for you with all my being 
and, finding I still cannot touch you
I sit down to cover paper with my song to you.

A piece of paper - starchy white with tiny, symmetrical  
            blue veins running across.
An impersonal piece of paper that obligingly holds my
            ink-blotched words so that I may gaze at them
              and wonder at their lack of saying 
                 what I mean to say.

I run my hand across the page and wish it were you I was touching.
I wish each quiet scratch of the pen on parchment was
  the sound of your voice.
And, because not the page nor the words nor the sound is you -
I cross out everything I've written, crumple the page and
            throw it away.

The room is silent now. The record has quit turning.
The needle is in its cradle.

And I find that tonight I have no song.  Not on paper.
            Only within me.
And, tomorrow, I'll again reach out to touch you.

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