“Harmony on the Rooftop”– after Leonard Cohen, in chorus with Neruda, Angelou, Whitman, Eliot, Dickinson, and others #NaPoWriMo #25

On the cracked rooftop, beneath a sky
scribbled with birdsong and breaking light,
we gathered—five of us, maybe six—
with dented guitars, a keyboard missing two keys,
and one out-of-tune violin with a frayed bow.

The youngest drummed palms on an overturned tin,
his rhythm wandering but insistent—
like a heart finding its beat in unfamiliar silence.
Someone hummed something sacred,
a hymn without a name,
and someone else whispered,
“There is a crack in everything—
that’s how the light gets in.”

Leonard Cohen sat quietly among us, in spirit,
between guitar strings and breath,
between ache and reverence.

We didn’t know each other's names,
but we knew the chords to “Hallelujah,”
and the hush that fell
after the final note
was its own kind of prayer.

Someone pulled out a crumpled paper,
quoting Neruda like gospel:
“I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.”
And someone laughed,
because they thought it was a love song—
and it was.

We weren’t lovers, though—only wanderers
in the language of melody,
pilgrims in denim jackets and sneakers
sharing poems through chord progressions.

A girl with braids sang, low and bright,
the way Maya Angelou might have
if she’d had a microphone and a moonlit stage:
"Leaving behind nights of terror and fear, I rise..."

Her voice cut through the dusk
like sunrise through a long, sleepless grief.

Whitman was with us too,
in our loud laughter and open arms—
"I am large, I contain multitudes,"
he reminded us, as we layered harmonies
that didn’t quite match but didn’t need to.

Eliot came in with dusk,
with measured chords and minor keys.
"I have measured out my life with coffee spoons,"
he sighed between the strings,
and we nodded, each of us tasting
our own quiet discontent.

A boy in thick glasses
sang Plath’s ghost into the night.
"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead,"
he muttered,
but then played a major chord
that made even her darkness shimmer.

And still we played.

The girl from the South quoted Hughes:
"I, too, sing America,"
her voice raw, defiant.
We played louder. We played for her.
We played for everyone unseen.

Even Rumi found a place,
drifting in like incense:
"Don't get lost in your pain, know that one day your pain will become your cure."
His wisdom wove through our strings
like wind across chimes.

We passed a bottle of soda between us,
warm and fizzless but sacred,
as sacred as Dickinson’s soft hymn:
"Hope is the thing with feathers."
And hope perched near the rusted chimney,
tilting its head to the music.

No one led. No one followed.
We layered melodies like stories,
threaded silences between verses,
waited for each other to breathe.

We weren't perfect.
Our tempo shifted like weather.
A string broke. A note cracked.
But no one apologized.

Because we knew this was the point—
not polish, but presence.
Not performance, but communion.

The city below forgot itself
as we stitched our voices
into one long, wavering ribbon—
a harmony held together by trust,
by borrowed lyrics,
by the quiet miracle of listening.

The stars arrived without announcement.
They didn’t need applause.
And neither did we.

Even when we stopped playing,
the rooftop still sang.
It echoed back fragments of Neruda and Cohen,
of Angelou and Hughes,
of all of us.

Long after we packed up
and climbed down those narrow stairs,
the music stayed.

And somewhere, someone
still hums a tune that began
on that rooftop,
in the spaces where silence
gave birth to song.

#HarmonyOnTheRooftop #PoetryCommunity #NaPoWriMo #InspiredByMusic #LeonardCohen #Neruda #Angelou #PoetryPrompt #CollectiveVoice #SharedMelody #ModernPoetry #CommunalMusic #PoetsTogether #DuetPoem