A Very Old Poem By Me

Song For Thom, Too Hard To Sing

The first note and the final autumn leaf

fade, both battered by the lonely wind.
A snowflake whirls away a rain-gray tear
that covered up the mind.
Because there is no first note small enough,
no scale so real this singer can embrace it,
and since there are no fresh tears cool enough
to shed for Thom, or shed for winter winds
(however beautiful the shapes they blow
to nowhere out of hope),
the mind forgets the sea-washed symphony
of sunburnt melody, and only the snow remembers.

Because there is no grief

too large for late-born singers
of haunted broken harmonies of fear;
and as I, long since lost, forgot the way
to that high staircase where old melodies
and memories reunite; I relinquish then the face
that haunts the nows. And here’s
a wish for him who sends to nowhere out of hope
his face: this thought is as an orchestra
gone flat, a discord of Decembers.

The days keep drawing in,

the night is cold and dark without a star.
Because there is no grief too large
for too-late singers, and no handkerchiefs
for tears remembering too soon for sleep,
I’ll think of Thom, who could sing anything

and, thinking of him, I will not fear

to dance all night through glissandi of dreams.
And then, although the sun comes up,
I find the daylight is not brave enough
for my faint chords to imitate,
nor lyric so complete for mystery
to bind it to my real.
And so I sing no words;
I hum no lullaby without the words,
but wink away a rain-gray snowflake
that used to be a tear.
If Thom were here, he’d know how to sing it.

By Joanne Ramey, 1955
*
This a the final revision of a poem I wrote in 1955. So it's one of my oldest poems. I was at the University with no money, high school clothes gone raggedy and too big since I lost baby fat, but in spite of it all a big old loud-mouth boyfriend that I couldn't stand to listen to. But he was handsome and had cigarettes. I finally gave him to Adrienne.
*
Across the hall from me at Tutwiler dorm lived Eileen W. whose daddy was rich as old Jay Gould and owned about half of Florida. She lent me fabulous clothes for dates and other dress-up occasions. I will always love that girl.