A Discordant Note (Poem)

She stood ankle-deep in mud and silt,
at the edge of a slippery stream sailing by,
stock-still and a little bit afraid,
as if she were tied to the tracks of a train,
and didn't know if she would escape in time.

Memories eddied around her,
memories like sticky juice on a hot summer day,
back when she was young in her age of innocence.

She debated whether or not to invite fate to its normal meal,
knowing that some gifts, once neglected,
can never be reclaimed.

Her mind was a sky the color of sooty wind,
and the rooms inside her head were flung wide open,
inviting in the spring-side sunshine,
inviting in that discordant note in a familiar song,
one she could not quite place,
one she could not quite understand,
one that brought her inevitably closer to the middle of that swirling stream.