Somewhere, Warren writes me in his letter,
somewhere right now the Lutherans
are singing “For the Beauty of the Earth,”
and though I am sitting on a plane as I read his words,
I am standing in the grand auditorium
with the other first sopranos in All State Choir
and our voices soar and build and rise
as the tenors and altos swell beneath us
and we weave a trill through the height
of a phrase, and my whole body has bloomed
into praise on that stage and I,
for the first time, am no longer singer
but song. Now, almost forty years later
all I have to do is trace that moment
with the softest fingers of memory and
I’m weeping in 10B, soggy with old ecstasy.
How is it such power was stored somewhere
in my cells, enough to take me from zero to puddle
in two seconds flat, and how much more
latent beauty is hiding inside this aging vessel
somewhere beneath old TV jingles and daily drivel
and heartbreaking news and yellowed layers of guilt
just waiting for me to touch it?
This poem filled my morning with For the Beauty of the Earth on the “softest fingers of memory.” Thank you for the gift. (Thank Warren for me, too!)
ha! will do! Oh this song …
Sometimes the power of music to evoke memories of softer times is overwhelming. Our senses conjure memories of things that brought us pleasure, and a feeling of well being. I too was in All State Choir and the glorious music we made with combined voices still resonates.
How fun you have memories of this, too … how little idea I had then of how lucky I was!
this is intensely likable to have shared, thank you
Thank you, friend!