I Sing the Small Things First

Day four hundred. Red turns green for nobody. I set the guitar case down beneath the crossing light. The pharmacy clock loses seven minutes. Grass has split the turning lane. I have spoken into empty streets until speech forgot my name. I take the six-string from its case, wipe plaster from the neck. For months I saved my voice for rescue. Tonight, I spend what's left. I thought the last surviving voice should tell how cities fell. But ruin has enough to say. I knew our living well. I sing the small things first, before the monuments and wars: a bus held at the corner, two hands lifting up a cart, someone humming while they counted, someone saving you a chair. No one had to be remembered to have mattered while they were. I sing the small things first. The first chord startles three grey pigeons from the awning of the bank. My fingers miss the second change. No one laughs. I play it straight. I try the names of presidents. They lie like gravel in my mouth. Then my thumb finds pencil writing on a brace behind the soundhole. I turn the body toward the signal, tilt the cedar to the light: “Final setup, E. Ruiz.” April twenty-nine. I sing the small things first, before the monuments and wars: the coin left in the vending slot, the hand beneath the load, the driver watching in his mirror while one late passenger ran. No one had to make the papers to have mattered where they stood. I sing the small things first. E. Ruiz set every fret here, shaved the saddle, checked the grain, wiped the dust out of the soundhole, sent this instrument away. We never shared a room or morning. They never heard me sing. Still, the final human music is not mine to make alone. I kept calling myself witness, like I stood outside our end. But these hands were held and carried. I was ordinary then. I was late. I lost my temper. I held doors and let them close. I was not the one who saved us. I was one of us. I sing the small things first: E. Ruiz leveling the frets, the bus held at the corner, the chair somebody kept, every hand beneath a burden, every name the headlines missed. No one had to be remembered to have mattered while they lived. I sing the small things first. Tonight, I count myself.