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Favorite Duos

at the 2010 NW Folklife Festival 

by Hank Davis

One (Larry & Lynette's close harmonies) 

 

Behind the stage, ornery kids splash noisily

in the fountain pool as their rumpled folks

munch on corn dogs and 'tropical' kebabs.

 

The rest of us ignore the typical holiday drizzle

and plant ourselves on the dropletted benches  

to give our friends a congenial listen.

 

Lynette strums her opening notes, 

those waterspider's arpeggios made by

the scuttle of her fingertips across

 

her husband's broad chest that let her arm

come to rest lightly, expected and welcome.  

If a familiar owl should graze Larry's ear

 

with a mouse's whiskers, her prompt will feel

from habit too soft to wake the children, even

years after they've grown up and left.

 

She reminds him to tell us of the trickling creek

they finally reached late in the afternoon, how

the flowing braid of its three-foot rapids 

 

chiming against quartz pebbles seemed

to tap counterpoint against his breath

as he grasped for his knees and realized that

 

he really ought to have the doctors

recharge his ticker. They did, and this

has made him voluble with stories again.

 

We smile. Hikes were simpler before

we all grew so damned convex. (Me too.)

Good thing their kitchen harmonies keep us

 

listening at the window over our evening dishes 

until we notice a pale dusting of starlight

on the lake that the creek eventually finds

 

glazing the liquid ruffles

from just across the way

with interwoven sparkling.