Tag Archives: music

IN CHORUS

IN CHORUS

When we sing, we sing. We become

the song. Notes have ceased to matter.

Our heart beats the pattern, the shape

 

of the time, the space of the spiral

where we stand.   We drink harmony

from the fountain;  we’re held

 

in the great mystery’s form. Farewell

to self-entanglement. We’re bending

like willows. The valley rejoices.

 

Unlonely, we journey through the night.  

As each stone adds its voice

to the singing of the stream,

 

even our troubles flow like love.

We are beautiful and good.

All our mouth is filled with music.

THE LAST SONG

Last night, the chorus I sing in had its last practice with our long-time conductor. I wrote this this morning, thinking of her and our time together:

 

THE LAST SONG

~for Susan Borg

Every song is the last.

How can I keep from singing—

that group in the church loft,

remember? and we stopped

and looked around, amazed.

No audience but ourselves.

Francois and Chuck over the rainbow,

with tears in their eyes and our eyes.

Hallelujah on New Year’s Eve

and the audience sang, too.

Hearth and Fire that last night,

all together, my voice breaking

as I met your eyes. Every song

is the last—each song, each time,

these singers, where they are,

what they carry, what they hold,

what they let go.

April prompt #9: STRANGE COMPANY

April prompt #9

KEEP STRANGE COMPANY

Ray’s #1

 

We prefer tunes in the Crixian mode.

We turn our cranks backwards.

Our shoes have pointed heels.

We knit socks from dental floss.

No wonder we have so few friends.

We give our neighbors pies of greens

we stole from their gardens in the night.

Five roosters roost on our roof.

Every single morning, no matter what

the weather, we greet the dawn

with Morris dancing on the lawn.

ENCANTO

ENCANTO

~for the singers

 

When we sing, we sing. We become

the song. Notes have ceased to matter.

Our heart beats the pattern, the shape

 

of the time, the space of the spiral

where we stand.   We drink harmony

from the fountain;  we’re held

 

in the great mystery’s form. Farewell

to self-entanglement. We’re bending

like willows. The valley rejoices.

 

Unlonely, we journey through the night.

As each stone adds its voice

to the singing of the stream,

 

even our troubles flow like love.

We are beautiful and good.

All our mouth is filled with music.

BEING ALTO

BEING ALTO

(with apologies to my soprano friends)

You read music. Good. Sing alto.

 ~My junior high chorus teacher

 

My flute, silver bell,

white-throated sparrow

ready to soar–

grounded.

 

But what do sopranos

know of harmonies

needed and given,

composer’s confidence?

 

Striding around the repertory

I’ve learned to hold the form,

tune to the root,

listen hard for the inner voice.

April Prompts #27: MUSICAL INSTRUMENT

Twenty seven down, three to go.

 

April Prompts #27

Janice’s #2:  I am a musical instrument

RIDDLE

 

I am old. Christ, I’m old. No one knows my home.

I’ve sung in cloisters and begged on the streets.

I’ve sung with the blind and danced with the poor.

At Compostela they carved me in stone.

I’ve been played by angels and skeletons.

Bosch set me down in his horrible garden,

vision of vice and lust and damnation.

I followed the peasants to town, helped them drown

their longings in wine. Churned by girls I sold

flywhisks and brooms. Tangents and tuners, bridges

and pegs, little chien in his shaky home.

My voice is harsh and sweet. I squeal and moan.

 

My wheel, like the wheel of the world, turns round

while my keys clack down and my strings resound.

APRIL PROMPTS # 8: A BODILY ORGAN

APRIL PROMPT #8

David’s #5: mention at least one bodily organ

 

BEHOLD THE KING

 

Both hands, all ten fingers.

Both feet. Buttocks

bounce or slide along.

The swing to and away

uncricks the back,

the pull and reach

loosen shoulders.

 

The highest pipes pip

like the smallest birds,

a twitch in the eardrum;

the lowest below sound,

a rumble in the gut.

 

Is there anything

they don’t have:

lips for flute,

cheeks for oboe,

the horn’s heart,

syrinx and larynx

and lung.

FLOWER POWER

~after J.F.

 

Pulling out of the nursery with a load
of perennials, my oldies station on the car radio–
Are you going to San Francisco?  Not today.
Never made it there. Just that farmhouse
on the back road, my roommates and the guy
with the bus and the socialist
who wrote the campus paper who killed himself
after graduation and the other one–
what did I call him?–Michael from Mountains–
he was very cool when I said sorry I’d only just met him–
I left the blinker on for a couple of blocks.
It isn’t loud enough. R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Four, no,
three daylilies to disguise the daffodils’ death-
throes. Four baptisia, big and bright and fuss
-free. Maybe next spring two small trees
for shade and ease. A bad moon on the rise, or
is it, haha, A bathroom on the right?  I could use
some Mama Cass–Dream a little dream—
which reminds me, we must get down
to see the kids. It’s been since Christmas.
Remember to bring some of Grandma’s lilies.
Only fools rush in. Time
to put the houseplants on the porch–
maybe the cactus will bloom better. The pot’s
too heavy. As I recall, it was then, too.
Ads. Assisted living for “mom.”
A tacky funeral home–could it be?  Yup,
the place that buried my father-in-law.
In the “family room” a little coffin
music box played a funeral march–.
not Gounod. That was the marionette
and Alfred Hitchcock. Chopin, I’m pretty sure.
Happy Together. The Turtles. “Our song”
for awhile. Good old Steve. Commercial
Real Estate and a wife whose name
sounded like mine, which probably made
it easier.  Next to the coffin a coffee table book
about sadism in the movies. How Dad
would have laughed. Now I can’t get no
satisfaction. Jagger looks like an old woman.
A whole generation. Same explanation.
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.