Consider this undertaking an underpinning
consider the very action: you,
or some soulful re-bar planted so deeply as to be indistinguishable
as anything but
you.

Consider the undertaking
pluck at that re-bar like the C2 string of a cello
until the whole sacred frame of you
hums with the low mournful and
play me what you are—
play what you are to me.

Come to know yourself by your actions
as I have come to know you by your song,
consider the undertaking
know what it is you do
to make yourself solid,
to plant yourself in yourself

for what are we if not our basements,
what are we if not our sounding chambers,
what are we if not whatever is left after
the singing stops?

Consider the undertaking
tell me what it is you do
alone in your deepest spaces
after the singing stops,

and know, as you do,
that this is what coming to love is:
to be taken under another
undertaking,
to be alone in

the deepest, mournful spaces
of someone else,
after the singing stops,

keeping guard
so that the next song
can be a brighter thing.