The Open Door. (Recitative and Aria).

                 Recitative.

I left the door open by mistake.
No thieves came,
No trespasser entered,
But the whole house was filled
With an unexpected light,
And birdsong thrilled the air.

I was waiting for the telephone to ring.
Good news spoken down the line
Could not outshine this singular moment,
Could not have similar power.
I improvised a melody in my head,
But the moment I added words the music faltered.

I was wondering how you were in the hospital,
An oxygen mask clamped over your face,
Brusque nurses whispering into the dark
And mysterious byways of your sleeping mind.
The phone only rings when the doctors find the time
To deal with - what for them - are peripheral matters.

But such hurried words confute truth with complexities,
Replace a longed for hug with rhetoric,
A kiss with bland statistics,
A smile with dull advice.
The sunlight dancing down the hall
Brings brighter gifts of hope.

                     Aria.

If I could hide ten Nightingales in my coat
I would deftly smuggle them into your ward
Then let them loose to fly over your bed,
Cascading music deep into your night.

But if this does not shake you from your sleep,
I will ask the thieves to saunter through the door,
Take what they need from off the shelves and table,
Leaving me an epitaph to write.

But rest assured I am no defeatist yet,
The morning sun was the fire of the Paraclete,
Not the precursor to an afternoon of rain.
The sun still burns my face at six o clock.

And the front door now stays open every day,
Until I hear your laughter in the hall.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 2nd. 2020.
A development of the unfinished poem Whit Sunday written May 22nd. - July 3rd. 2017.
The poet is writing this poem to a person lost in dreams from his own dream world.