Not the Music

Not the music.

It is this other thing

I keep from all of them

that matters, inviolable.

I scratch in my journals,

a mouse rummaging through cupboards,

nibbling on a crust of bread, apple skins,

chewing the edges of photographs, the small

details of a life. I hoard and save,

place one thing inside another

inside the next.

Start with the prairie, then Horizon

and inside it our house,

the kitchen, the table where I sit

with my journal, and inside it

everything I write – dust, moths,

wind speaking in whispers

across the page,

the absence of rain,

forgiveness –

everything shrinking

to the smallest

thinnest letter,

I.