All Together Now Contest Winner

white woman with long grey hair in a blue plaid sleeveless shirt

Ann Pai

Ann Pai
Star Rating
★★★★★
Reviewer's Rating
Sep 19, 2023

Joy at the Green Guitar

Two hundred or so folks, we
don't much know each other.
We're here for Joy,

for her live singing and guitar.
The first notes drip from her fingers
and we sigh like a water dipper's
lifted to our lips. We're one room now:
listening.

Joy's voice rises like
biscuits in the oven as day
sings to darkness. Her light
goes everywhere.

Her hands on the guitar
untie the knots in us. Her song
sorts the loose strands of us,
begins to knit us back together,

a blanket made of each other.
We’re enfolded snug,
in last rippling notes, applause,
gifts of gratitude, a next tune,
friends, neighbors, community.
Joy's local.


 

 

Reviewed by Helen H.
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