Greening Ground (Poem)

Greening Ground

A song is but a little thing
underground, rooted
where we can't hear
the strike force at work,
as silent as off-key words
stuck without an audience
yet ever hopeful
for the sign bidding Go.

Deep through the grit
of winter a song is
but a little thing of trial and
error, of learning to practice
its own way back,
like you and me
undone by days of together
split apart at regular intervals.

A song is but a little thing
underground, and yet it takes
an orchestra to carry the tune
through wind and rains,
to catch at last what joy it is
to turn heads in full flower.

© 2010 Maureen E. Doallas. All Rights Reserved.
____________________________

I wrote this poem for Carry on Tuesday's prompt for March 23: to use the opening lines of "The Poet and His Song", by Paul Laurence Dunbar, wholly or partly in an original poem or prose piece. Links to contributions from all of the participants in Carry on Tuesday #45 are here.

Text of selections of Dunbar's poems, with audio by Herbert Martin, are here.