There's music in the air,
kind of loud,
kind of rare,
I caught the note,
the subtle rising float
above the world,
as people's tear fall,
it rises up and up and up
through the air,
surrounds us as the world
aches with covid
and loss of tranquility,
I hear it,
I caught the note,
Can you hear it?
it is there,
listen carefully for the vibrating sound of the universe
as it circles us, and protects the lost and comforts the doubts,
Can you hear it?
It's about to heal us, soldiers in arms carrying arrows,
as we fear it takes care of us, subtle beats of soundless drums
of angels arriving to guide and protect as we lay sleepless
at night, can you hear it?
It's called Hope,
it's louder above us now, vaccine or no vaccine
its there with mother nature caressing us,
and if you stand still you can hear the marching too,
over hills, mountains, rivers, lakes and streams,
Hope comes down on us like a song, even as it is
floating, floating above
and finding us, listen now, beat, beat, its here,
carry the sound in your heart,
carry it in the day,
carry it through night,
Hope is here - don't give up
Hope drums louder now,
hold onto life and dreams,
for another day.
By Melinda Cochrane ​

As the music
fills my soul
my hands begin
to write out the tempo in
my heart
and the sway and flow
of song shows itself
in my lines

And then the life
I am wearing moves
too as if the music
and words express
my living and
I sing and my eyes
close and my soul bleeds

The door opens to my inner
life and my dream
falls over
the passionate peace
and I turn it up louder
to block out the noise
from the world moving around me

Then Etta James' song fills up
the space, “I’d rather go blind too,
I love you so much,
I don’t want to see you leave me baby”
closing my eyes again the music
touches my dreams, I don't want 
you to go away, stay here with me,
and my inspiration hits me

The lines drift and the
sun, it shines down on me
and the lines free
from me, then the music
comes to an end
and I turn it on again
so I can start and begin again
the painful ache in me
to live the song twisted
in my veins for expressive
creativity calling out to me

And it ain’t over, ever for me
the lines keep comin’
and my heart, it bleeds me
in every word and line
all in the beat, rhythm and rhyme
to make my dream come true like
a song, sung by Etta James, lingering 
in my life like a longing for the day I say
you stayed and now the dream sings with me. 
( first publishehed at lifeasahumanmagazine
​

​Your song, I can hear,
as if the tune was written for me,
like a stream flowing over small stones polished to perfection,
​the wind blowing
quietly in the trees,

the sun in the sky,
peeking, daring me to fly,
your song I can hear, but sometimes I don't know why,

It finds in me words, words I did not know,
as you pour me from you, as if you too know
the reality of a dream like many
following an unknown path,
but still, but still I can hear your song,

In the quiet of the night
I hear you, silence does not silence you,
when I turn myself over to sleep, it is as if you
are there to reasssure me, it is okay,
it won't go wrong, I am here for you,
sing, sing with me, please sing along,
sing your song,

I hear every tune, every note, every word
in a dream melody like a lark over a morning lake
sounding morning's arrival, I hear it, I hear it so
clearly that my heart cannot help but pound,

I finally hear you in the middle of any storm,
I hear you like I found you somewhere on this journey,
a search for stories, the lark flew
and the words came to me,
and the song within us all,
and that is where the dream sings,
and that is where our story begins,
this is where your dream lives,
dream your song,
it is yours to begin,
​yours to sing.
BY Melinda Cochrane copyright

It keeps findin' me
down the small streets
and around the bends,
over highways
and above ground, through
halls, down stairways and
over hills, down paths
in trees covered with snow.
It keeps findin' me
in the dreams, in the songs,
in the days and in the nigihts,
in the mornings and in the sunsets.

It keeps findin me as if it was always
there, always chasin' me, even when
I tell it to go away, give me some rest,
come back another day, when I have more energy.

It keeps finding me no matter what I do, what I say,
what I feel, what I fight, what I push away, what I
forget to do, what I do, what I do throughout the day.

It keeps findin' me and never goes away,
the inward callin', to keep this dream goin'
to keep it movin', to keep it, to hold on to it,
to hold it tight, to keep this dream goin',
to keep the story, to write.
By Melinda Cochrane copyright

Today
the blue bird came out of its cage
to sing a melody of love
and the song made the room
remember its silence
as the dried flowers of
time began to age
more quickly 
before the clock
hanging over pictures
framed in hopes
and lost in boxes

But still the blue bird
perched itself on
the hand of the woman
about to enter the next
chapters of her life
and it sang a chorus
of dreams through her heart

As the sun began to rise
in a life with stories
and the bird 
whispered quietly to the
lines in the woman’s face
“you are still alive,
and we should sing together”
then both sang a song
which lifted the sleep out
of life and the dance of
wings about to fly met the air
By Melinda Cochrane © 
also published at lifeasahumanmagzine

There are
secrets poets keep
deep within their hearts
like the first time
it was broken
then the last time it was taken
and we keep the secrets of quiet days
when God speaks such gentleness in us
that we cry, cry from the depth of meaning

meaning so many miss
and we share them
in words
eloquent
sometimes simple sentiments
sometimes with a hyphen
to join one thought to the next
secrets that are hard for us to share
they aren’t the secrets of who we forgot
who we never loved, who we loved 
and sometimes who we never knew
they are the secrets of the universe
tucked somewhere between our pen
and our desire to be heard
it is as if,
as if
God is asking us
“What are you going to do,
sit there and say nothing?
Sit there in your writer’s solitude
while the world falls apart?
Do something…”
So we do
and for most of us,
if not all of us
it is the most painful
of experiences,
we go from those quiet days
into louder ones
filled with know-it-all critics
and agents
and then rejections of poems- some times acceptance
like a crown was granted on top of a poet, 
waiting to be seen, waiting to be heard,
but we kill something we had in that quiet
but we want to break it
break it and for that
we are willing to have the world
gaze upon our words as if they knew us intimately
and they want to
and they need to
how else will they explain their very
existence
By Melinda Cochrane copyright
also published at lifeasahumanmagazine