T.

Before you can hear the music,
you must be able to hear the silence.
(Awoke middle-of-the-night
with these words on my tongue.)

***

I could use a few days of silence myself.
This week has been a glittery whirl,
and I'm ready for some quiet time by the fire.

We attended the Seattle Obama Ball Tuesday night
as the South Lake Union Armory Building: rw&b streamers,
soul food and flags galore. People dressed to the nines
and to the ones (that would be us: denim).
Barbecued pork ribs, bbq'd chicken, collard greens,
beans, corn bread, sweet potato pie, iced tea.
The Jay Thomas Big Band, a funk band (my bro-in-law
is a fab guitar player) and an Eritrean dance group
with live accompaniment. Reilly was interviewed by
KOMO-4 news and had his 15-seconds (or was it 10?!)
of fame on the 11:00 news. Nelson was the AV man
and kept a steady stream of Obama images on the big screen.
Hundreds and hundreds of jubilant Seattlites, dancing
Seattlites, filled-to-the-brim satisfied Seattlites.
My last image of the evening was of a family of five
leaving the event: each of the three children held
a fistful of red, white & blue helium balloons, undoubtedly
plucked from the table decorations as the evening wound
down. The balloons bopped and bumped as the children
skipped across the crosswalk -- a buoyant hopefulness,
perhaps? A harbinger of better and brighter things to come?