SINGING BETWEEN THE LINES

Because there weren't enough altos in the choir

my high school music teacher, Mr. Parker,

shipped me off to the meager alto section

where I sang Handel's Messiah in monotone riffs 

like a scald crow, or a ploughman at the fields.

Never the white dove soaring in the vaulted sky.

Decades later, after an accident, a punctured lung 

left me breathless, my therapy was to join a choir, 

where I discovered that all this time that

I was a soprano. I felt cheated at both ends: 

I was given no melody line when I was young,

singing a supportive third below the gilded flock 

who preened their swansong feathers, 

& screeched high notes because they could.

Mr. Parker's nose was as red as that fictional reindeer,
as he spiked his coffee with endless libations.

And now, with no way to reach the upper arpeggios,

I stagger between the two parts, a switch hitter

baying out all the song lines.

No wonder I was always trying to braid 

the alto and soprano lines together all at once, 

splitting the difference between the sour notes. 

No wonder I still can't sing to save my life.

12/8/17

No alto, I sang
the Messiah in flat notes
no melody line

to soar in the vault

of the soprano songbirds

preening their voices.

12/8/17

Write a haiku invoking, but not naming, a minor holiday. You may use the name of the holiday as the title if you want. Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Cr challenge

OK so it wasn't a haiku.

In high school there weren't enough altos, so my choir director said I was an alto, and I found out decades later I am a soprano. I felt cheated at both ends. No melody line when I was young. Trying to simultaneously sing the alto and the soprano lines at once, then splitting the difference between the note range when I was older. No wonder I can't sing.