“Write a poem that takes its inspiration from the life of a musician, poet, or other artist.” (https://www.napowrimo.net/day-twenty-nine-11/)
I simply cannot picture you
folding laundry.
I hear your glorious voice
coming through cheap speakers
as I cook
and I cannot picture you
at a stove
stirring a pot
(Of course you stirred
oh, so many metaphorical
pots in your career!)
or setting a table
or just generally
tidying up.
Your voice, such a regular
part of my quotidian experience,
yet I cannot see you
doing anything so normal.
I’m sure you did–
you having been a real
person, living your life,
you weren’t on tour
or in the studio
every second of
every day. You must
surely have done all
the normal things
we normal people do.
I simply cannot picture you
doing them. I need your
voice to soar,
to not be tied to the
mundane of normal.
I need your soaring voice
to take me away
from all this.
John the Librarian 