Pocket Change

Do you ever wonder if God frequents a nightclub?
And one day as He buys a martini, He tells the bartender –
“Keep the change.”
And that bartender pockets the change,
except there’s a hole in that pocket
and one of those coins falls right through
and rolls right out of that nightclub
to the edge of that galactic joint and
falls to the earth.

Suppose a wealthy man comes across that coin
and as he is about to go away on a trip
he gives that coin to his servant
entrusting him to use it wisely
and suppose that servant is a fool
and he takes the coin and buries it
and do you ever feel like that coin?

Last Day of Class

Well, I’ve reached my last day of classes in college. When I wake up in the morning I’ll only have three left, then its a paper and two finals to go before the great wide open is all that lays before me. What am I doing this summer? I don’t have a clue. If you have something you’d like me to hear about, then by all means, tell me. What am I doing this fall? I have no idea. If you have something you’d like to offer me, then go ahead, seriously. Melanie Shealy, why have you disappeared off the face of the earth? What is going on with you? I can’t find my copy of your cd. Might be back home or something.

I don’t have anything to say. Last year I was sick the whole month of May. this year, i’m doing much better. I love Appalachia. and I love the dulcimer and mandolin. I’d probably feel different if I had stayed home for College, but I miss all my old running trails. I want to get out there on the paths and soak up the South. The hills, the over-abundant greenery, the obnoxious humidity. These are the things that have shaped me, without me realizing it. I’m going to climb the mountain when I get home, then I’m going to Dairy Queen for a Mister Misty. Those things aren’t even all that great, but I remember my mom used to always buy them for us. If anyone wants to come along, let me know. Peace kids.

Migration

When
I was a bird
my
dreams were different
sometimes
I’d forget to preen
but
I stole a part of a star
to
keep inside my breast
and
each day it yearns to return.

At
12, I went to work
with
a woodcutter
he
showed me the ax and the saw.
I’d
nap by the alameda
and
laugh when the hummingbirds talked.
Most
of all, I loved the soft flannel shirts.

This
was back before lunch boxes
we’d
bring our lunch in a pail:
corned
beef, diced rutabaga, ginger snaps.
And
aye, we were happy
in
the silence of the busy forest
where
we did our work, made momma proud.

In
Quebec, I met a girl
raven
haired, lips aplenty
she
flashed her teeth at me.
Was
she hungry? Maybe just smiling,
maybe
lonely, like me, after the war
and
will it ever stop? I hear shells in my sleep.

In
2047, I will return,
in
a flutter of blue and black
back
down south, where tobacco grows
and
my nest will still be waiting
In
an oak, not in the pines
and
I’ll let this life go free.