Reel
by Sarang Lee
We stumbled, the first time, into her ring
With empty hands and an unscored song.
And nothing to give but the stars in our eyes
And a name once lost in sorrow found
To fall in the crooked shape of her sigh,
To cradle soft in the nooks of our home
With naught but stars to guide us home.
She traced a score as bells do ring,
Tucked between the smile and sigh
That trips along a homeward song.
And in return for a path now found
She stole the starlight from our eyes.
The second time, we woke to eyes,
Now filled with light that called us home,
Gazing on a dream yet found
In crescent moon’s crescented ring,
To hear the hushed and star-scored song
To memorize its starlit sigh.
And so, we two, unravelled that sigh
And spun it a dance before her eyes —
A pas-de-deux to sorrow’s song,
Scored from the warmth of hearth and home
Until, like life, her laugh did ring
The fractured break of sunrise found.
The third and final time was found
Knotted and tangled between a sigh
And a name that lost its ring
In the quiet of her eyes.
To bring the final echo home
To sing the dying hollow’s song
With clumsy hands we spun the song
That we as children lost had found
In search for a place they might call home,
Where spirits rest and smile and sigh,
And to that song she closed her eyes
And breathed her final, starlit ring:
The quiet ring of a two-note song
To seek with eyes what once was found
And kiss the sigh that brings us home.