for Ulli Sir Jesse
Surrounded with falling,
you choose joy.
Given a minor tune,
you change a note
and the melody, now major,
finds new gaps
in the day’s dark staves.
Given a lump, you dissolve it
with tears. In the face of loss,
you smile and offer your hand.
In the hail, you sing. In the dark,
you sing. And all along the trail,
you sing and invite the world
to sing with you. I will sing
with you. Though I weep,
I will sing with you. Though
you move father away, I sing
with you, I sing with you
wherever you go, I sing
because that is what we do,
we who know harmony
as one of the ladders
to god, we who feel how
the song sings us, and because
you have taught us
so beautifully, we sing,
though it sounds perhaps
more like gurgling tonight,
more like keening, or wailing,
we sing, gonna rise up, we sing.
Not sure who Ulli Sir Jesse is, but this is a beautiful tribute to a life well-lived…
She is a beautiful spirit, for sure! Leaving our community after over 20 years. She touched all of us with her singing … We’ve been in the same singing group for 18 years!
It’s so bittersweet seeing her go–
“We sing…” although seems the song will no longer remain the same.
by the way, even gurgling keening wailing is song, if from the heart; if a “ladder to god.”
nonetheless, the heart beats lesser due to the going… may the time come, in its proper time, for the heartbeat to begin again.
A fine tribute, though I have to say until I read the comment about who it is dedicated to it sounded like death, which I see it is, in a way, a loss, a leaving, and so perhaps that is right.