The Singing - Patrick Phillips

[Larry Robinson]

The Singing

I can hear her through
the thin wall, singing,
up before the sun: 
two notes, a kind 
of hushed half-breathing, 
each time the baby 
makes that little moan —
 
can hear her trying 
not to sing, then singing 
anyway, a thing so old 
it might as well 
be Hittite or Minoan,
 
and so soft no one 
would ever guess 
that I myself once 
sang that very song: 
 
back when my son 
and then his brother
used to cry all night 
or half the morning, 
though nothing in all 
the world was wrong. 
 
And now how strange: 
to be the man from next door, 
listening, as the baby cries 
then quiets, cries and quiets 
each time she sings 
their secret song,
 
that would sound the same ten 
thousand years ago, 
and has no 
meaning but to calm.
 
        - Patrick Phillips