I’ve Been Downhearted, Babe

Blues moves my soul like no other sound,
a feeling so low, so soulfully crooned,
will lift me back up into the profound.

The laced canopy in the light of the moon
of soaring sycamore trees stitched the night
sky into mystery, and for a moment I found
peace until I gazed back down, fright
piercing my breastbone, watching the crowd,
and saw the back of my lover verge
into the swaying and moaning of Bluesfest 1989,
his lean, spare body skirting the lake’s edge,
morning glory vines crushed underfoot, as he guided
another girl by the hand to our jeep
and down into the blues I leaped.

Tracy Plath