Ann Wagner Foley lives in Sacramento with her husband and a few very spoiled pets.  She is grateful for the writing group that ensures that she writes more than PowerPoint decks.

There have always been two melodies –
the surface level, high and sweet, fit for public consumption.

And the underneath, sometimes beautiful and soft,
sometimes crude or morbid.

In our most grounded realizing, the underneath is soft, our mortal time, the melody of earth
itself, the water flowing over and under the deep ground. The sweet heavy tune of the
guttural, indelicate welcoming of each new child at birth.

Yes, you, I love you, I choose you, I am here only for you.

And then the striving begins, the adapting, the fitting, one new goal after another. And that
underneath, the primal melody,
blood pulsing through the cord that connects us to
her
is dampened, strangled,
pressed

and she flares with every micro-message
the innocent not-so-innocent words
the flash of a murderous brow, the hard-set mouth
primal rage flitting across an innocuous face

And for a moment,
a second,

we see her, that under-melody and we are
afraid and
exhilarated as we dare to hope that she will
rise up and hold all of the babes
we’ve loved
and lost
and dreamed of

up to the thunderous skies and proclaim

this, this, is my song.