There is only one reason.
Of course, I do not recall
what it is. I am too distracted
recalling the tune to a chant
I heard yesterday, nine notes
that now float incessantly through
all other thoughts, so that
while making pasta or making
the bed, while drinking sake
or sitting quietly or answering
the question Why, there they are,
nine notes, stringing like garland
on the mind’s door, decorating
every thought with a rising, a soaring,
a lingering high before the tune falls, the resolve,
oh oh oh oh aaaa, oh oh ooooh oh,
festooning each breath, as if the only
reason to inhale at all is to
sing it once again, nine notes,
oh oh oh oh aaaa, oh oh oooh oh …
and there is, I am sure,
something else I am supposed
to oh oh oh oh aaaa, um say.
I see you, once again, having fun—particularly with the closing couplet.
Typically, having a song or melody stuck in your head is a nuisance. Here, it’s a perpetual blessing, a making the mundane sacred. It also makes me wonder, anew, reflecting on a recent Susan Tweit blogpost, what to call the positive version of a vicious cycle: “upward spiral”?
Great the way the nine notes interrupt the ending. I think this one deserves an accompanying audio track!