The power of music
and friendship
heals dead connections;
a well-meaning member
of a jam session
offers me a guitar.
I politely decline,
embarrassed by my disability,
and they shrug.  Your choice.
The familiar curves
beneath my arm
like a woman
from my past,
my amnesiac left hand
reaches for the
muscle memory
of fifty years' practice.
After an agonizing minute,
the G chord miraculously plays,
as I played it at five,
the three big fingers alone
strong enough to hold it.
The switch to C impossible;
so I play a variation.
Doesn't sound bad with the group.
My God, I might play a D7
by the next time it comes around
in the song.
The gang is playing old standards,
Ohio State music;
three chords and a cloud of dust,
which suits my present skill(?) well.
I almost cried when a few tunes later,
we sang A Horse With No Name
to my accompaniment.

Beethoven was deaf, yet heard the Ode To Joy.
Hawking is paralyzed, and travels the universe.
I have three good fingers,
and no good excuses.

We're talking
put up a hand
to stop a hurricane
futile here,
folks.
Two days past trying
while listening
to Hermine's tails
lashing at the windows,
I reach deep
into a well of emptiness
for a lost bucket
of words
filled with dusted
dried feelings,
the rope frayed
to snapping.
A thirst to heal
will lead me to drill
elsewhere,
thirsting for the tears
commingling with rain,
the tears that burst
from a stone-crag heart
in artesian splendor.

A life lived
as an oxymoron:
sociopath
with a conscience.

in scorched ground
severed roots remain
untethered tumbleweed
rides the thermal
on a heady rush to heaven
only to drop shattered
on the desolate highway
a once lush landscape
in full splendid flower
abundance freely given
but for one desire
do not let me die
for lack of water