Write – taking a risk

I knew I had to do a blog post on “write” today, and to be honest I haven’t written anything recently. So I took a risk and asked for word suggestions from my Facebook page, and using all but one of their suggestions, (sorry P) this is the poem that I have come up with:

At first meeting,
most called Joe Finley reserved.
As that is what one calls someone
who chooses to guard his opinion,
while others throw theirs helter-skelter
at whoever is unlucky enough to be in earshot.

Yet when he spoke,
his gentle voice had a way of cutting through the chatter
and when he sang, oh when he sang,
you breathed only when he breathed.
Spellbound by his mellifluous voice.

I would take him to the garden room,
and as his tone filled the room,
the other residents would be
suddenly at peace, their grumbling, shuffling stilled,
by the tangible integrity of the moment.

It seemed when he sang, he inhaled and exhaled peace,
and it settled like a fine mist on all who were present.
Then he would finish, cough shyly, look around with some bewilderment
and return once more to his constant mantra
“gotta feed the mice, gotta feed the mice”.

And we,
we would all breathe out again
and return, somewhat wistfully, to our duties.

Jodie McCarthy
May 2014