<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="">The Second Music</div><div class=""><span style="font-style: normal;" class=""><br class=""></span></div><div class=""><p class=""><span style="font-style: normal;" class="">Now I understand that there are two melodies playing,<br class="">one below the other, one easier to hear, the other</span></p><p class=""><span style="font-style: normal;" class="">lower, steady, perhaps more faithful for being less heard<br class="">yet always present.</span></p><p class=""><span style="font-style: normal;" class="">When all other things seem lively and real,<br class="">this one fades. Yet the notes of it</span></p><p class=""><span style="font-style: normal;" class="">touch as gently as fingertips, as the sound<br class="">of the names laid over each child at birth.</span></p><p class=""><span style="font-style: normal;" class="">I want to stay in that music without striving or cover.<br class="">If the truth of our lives is what it is playing,</span></p><p class=""><span style="font-style: normal;" class="">the telling is so soft<br class="">that this mortal time, this irrevocable change,</span></p><p class=""><span style="font-style: normal;" class="">becomes beautiful. I stop and stop again<br class="">to hear the second music.</span></p><p class=""><span style="font-style: normal;" class="">I hear the children in the yard, a train, then birds.<br class="">All this is in it and will be gone. I set my ear to it as I would to a heart.</span></p><p class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Annie Lighthart</p></div><div class=""><br class=""></div></div></body></html>