I took your book out of the library to see if I could get closer to you again just by reading words that you wrote. I read one page plus ten before my mind collapsed under the weight of your thoughts, and the walls closed in then. I had to start promising myself that I would leave my room on my days off. I defer to the streets with headphones on, Kid A accenting my walk. It's crowded at noon, empty at four in the morning. The rhythm of the city ousts me in and out of motion.
I've stopped asking why you move me, why my mind sits and idles on your memory – it's my thinking food here.
Oh great, I’ve lost my gait and now I can't get past these people. Oh shoot, got a long way to go, long way before making it home. You, my edge, inspiration, you as a haven – I've got to let this thoughts go. I've been making decisions based on a gaping God-notwithstanding plot hole.
I've stopped asking why you move me, why my mind sits and idles on your memory, but these thoughts don't satisfy. I've got to take my mind off, got to take my mind off this…
So last night, I got lost up on Madison. I walked west, and breathed deeply, and fell off into a sanctuary. Oh, why this burst of leafy green, amid these concrete grids – why not? What else to keep us sane, to keep us close to peace? And if we wait for me to make sense of these mumbled jumblings out my mouth, we’ll be here till I’ve turned inside out.
Do you remember when I was your neighbor and my feet would pull me past your porch in just two minutes’ time? There were no restaurants or stoplights along the way – just a whole world of circumstances separating us for another day. And it will remain this way: I’ll stomp on these sidewalks in a city 700 miles east; you’ll keep tending to your life in clean Midwestern grief and bliss. There is a peace to this.
I put your book back in the library to show that I could see something past you through my so-called healthy adult-like will. I wish I could say it was all my doing, all of my forced detachment – but miles of distances and a gracious hand have really dealt it.
credits
from Strings,
released April 24, 2012
Music & lyrics by Rachel Zylstra
Strings arrangement by Matt Gelfer
Rachel Zylstra: piano and vocal
Matt Gelfer: violin
Greg Williams: viola
Paul Wolfram: cello
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