apprenticing

You stand by the fence,
with fingers of one hand
through. And up
to the masters in canopies,
listening, you sing out
with whistling lips,

as clear as bells, as clear
as you can - and
doing it wrong. So

one by one, and tentative
(as if wondering oh,
what do we do with this
one?) each begins

trying

- gently, with patient repetition
and insistence, singing back to you -

to teach you its song.

A beginner's
symphony begins,
each master weaving
its perfect and simple song
in and around
and over each other,

with you

adding always your guileless
part, so perfectly artless
and wrong, the coaching

and correction of which

is the object of art.