I forgot, today, to be sad.
Perhaps, more truly,
the song of the hermit thrush
ringing through the alpine meadow
gathered me into its echoing
and lifted me out of myself
and landed me fully in the field
where the green corn lilies
reached up to my waist.
While listening to the thrush,
I forgot how things fall apart,
held as I was by the long
whistled song, haunting and rich,
flute-like and clear as it pealed
through the spruce, honest
as any church bell, urgent
as a gong, holy as a woman
set free by a song.
Posts Tagged ‘music’
While Hiking on Lizard Head Pass
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, grief, healing, hermit thrush, hiking, mountains, music, natural world, song on June 23, 2024| 15 Comments »
There Is This Moment
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, home, joy, music on June 20, 2024| 12 Comments »
with the full moon rising
and a large bird of prey
gliding spirals in the sky
and my husband on my right
my sweet friend on my left
and the two-person band
transforming sorrow into joy
just by singing it in harmony
and giving the song their everything,
and maybe that’s what is ours to do—
to give ourselves wholly to a moment
as if we are the singers and life the song,
so I give myself to the low summer sun
and the dust on my feet,
to the pucker of lime
and the tears of my friend,
give myself to the ache that never leaves
and the relentless beauty that ever arrives,
and the more I give myself to the world,
the more the world rushes in
and says home, home, home,
you are home.
Ready for It
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, mother, music, play, Taylor Swift, walking on May 1, 2024| 7 Comments »
“Mom, what’s the title of this song,”
she asks me. I listen to the lyrics
for cues. Luckily, Taylor Swift starts to croon
in her mezzo voice, part velvet, part thorn,
“You’re on Your Own Kid.” And I shout
out the title. Vivian smirks,
knowing I was rescued by the song.
“Album?” she says. “Red?” I guess.
“Wrong,” she says. “Evermore?”
I guess. “Wrong.” “Midnights?” “Yes.”
She nods in mock exasperation
it took me so long.
She loves it when I get it wrong
in her endless quiz of popular songs.
She loves that she can teach me.
I love it, too, that she shares with me
these lyrics that grow her, shape her.
We walk along the river trail,
one white air pod in her ear,
one white air pod in mine
and the river braids by and the next song
begins to play. “Title?” she asks,
and I listen for clues until Taylor
demands in a gravelly rush
“Are You Ready for It?” And I look
at my daughter, just fifteen
and becoming so wholly herself.
As much as I want to stop
in this moment with her hand brushing mine
and the musky scent of river
and sunshine warm on our skin
and I think yeah, I’m ready for it,
though it brings me to tears, yes I am.
What the Tuner of Souls Knows
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged music, recalibration, soul on April 5, 2024| 5 Comments »
The quiet is best. Then
one might hear what is
strung too loose, too tight,
how the voicing is not
quite right. Not so long ago,
the tuner brought
this same instrument back
to true. But there is no failure.
that the instrument
went out of tune.
That’s is simply
what instruments do—
go sharp, go flat,
they waver until
once again the temperament
is set and then
song is what a life does—
we feel it the change
in every note—
oh the bliss of being in tune
with ourselves and
with every other instrument.
Then no matter how old
we are, we are new.
One Listening to Dvorak
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cello, chamber music, fulfillment, love, music on March 15, 2024| Leave a Comment »
with such fierce tenderness
the bow urges strains from the cello
like that, love, play me
What Lives On
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged joy, mariachi, memory, music on March 13, 2024| 10 Comments »
It didn’t last, but there was that afternoon
when we were walking side by side
down the middle of the street,
all four of us straddling the center line,
different musicians every few blocks.
It was Father’s Day. The alpine sun
was hot but not unbearable, and we stopped
to listen to the bright brass of the mariachi band.
My kids were not embarrassed when I hummed along
to Guantanamera—or at least they did not tell me so.
We laughed about I don’t remember what, but
I remember the laughter and the light,
easy feeling I had, a full-body certainty
everything was going to be okay.
I remember how our shadows
stretched out on the street in front of us
like a future I could not read.
I fell in love with the shape of our shadows,
not knowing how soon there would be only three.
These moments of gladness—
like notes in the summer air, they don’t stay.
But they stitch themselves into our being,
a goodness that lives and lives,
sometimes hidden for years until
it sings back to life with joy so real
I can almost feel the sun on my back,
can almost hear all of our voices
join the chorus for La Bamba.
Even now, alone in my quiet room,
my smile is as real as the tightness
in my chest, as real as those trumpets,
real, that blue, blue sky.
After the Long Silence
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dante, door, harmony, music, silence on March 11, 2024| 14 Comments »
harmony opens in me
the doors of forgiveness,
just a sliver—
then it dissolves
the idea of a door
One at the Harp & Flute Concert
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged classical music, flute, harp, joy, music on March 2, 2024| 6 Comments »
like honey and sunlight
the music tonight—
my body, a thousand eager mouths
The Broken Heart Goes Dancing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bluegrass, dancing, heartbreak, joy, music on January 26, 2024| 8 Comments »
at The Infamous Stringdusters show
Give me a night made of strings,
a night that is plucked
and strummed and bowed and picked,
a night with a driving, ecstatic music
and nothing to do but be danced
by the night as if each string of dobro
and fiddle and bass is attached
to an arm, a foot, a hip,
to the curling edge of an upper lip—
and even the broken heart is tugged
from its chair by bronze-coated strings
until it’s an open and rhythmic thing
that beats for the bliss of it, beats
for the song of it, beats
for the joy-swaying head-shaking lift
of it, beats because that’s what a heart
is for, and for hours the night
pulls every string, and the heart
beats out more, please, more.
Inner Song
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged companion, music, mystery, song on November 30, 2023| 4 Comments »
Perhaps you, too, have heard it,
despite the cacophony,
a song that rises in you—
a tune you’ve never learned
that somehow owns you
the way white owns winter,
the way breath owns
our lives. Perhaps you, too,
have marveled as the tune
spills forward, guiding you,
keeping you company
so that even when alone,
you know for certain
you are not alone.
The Joy of Repetition
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Beethoven, gratefulness, mozart, music, repetition, variation on November 24, 2023| 7 Comments »
at the Palais Montcalm
Just because I’ve been grateful before
doesn’t make today’s gratefulness any less true—
I think of Beethoven who fell in love
with a melody by Mozart,
then wrote seven variations for cello and piano—
one minor, one song-like,
three written in different times,
but each variation at heart the same.
I think of the joy on the young cellist’s face tonight
as he drew on the bow and plucked on the strings
as if this one performance were everything.
And so it is with gratefulness—
each time we express it, it matters the most.
Whether it’s a new expression
or a variation on a gratefulness theme
that we will again and again name.
Like gratefulness for family.
Gratefulness for friends.
Gratefulness for morning, evening.
For each scrap of peace.
For each chance to be grateful again.
If you are interested in listening:
* Seven Variations in E flat major for cello and piano is based on the aria Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen (“In men, who feel love”) from Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute.
With a Glass of Valpolicella
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bittersweet, dining, music, old quebec city, paradox on November 22, 2023| 5 Comments »
at Parmesan, in Vieux-Québec
We hum along as the gentle old man
plays accordion beside our table,
his fingers nimble, his eyes closed,
and we smile as he sings in French
of autumn leaves and how life
separates those who love each other.
This is how the heart learns to break
and to soften at the same time.
With a sway, he keeps coaxing
the sad song from the keys
while we hold hands and
lean into the enchantment,
wishing it wouldn’t end.
One in Tune
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, music on September 7, 2023| 2 Comments »
fitting a meteor shower
into a melody—
this love song
Father’s Day, 2021
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged father's day, happiness, memory, music on June 18, 2023| 3 Comments »
That was the year our small family
strolled the closed-off streets
in Ridgway and listened
to mariachi and country
and a fabulous upright bass.
And my son was at ease,
my daughter content
my husband smiling.
And I remember thinking,
Remember this.
Two years later, I remember
my joy in the moment
now tethered to me like a shadow.
I remember sun warm on our backs.
I remember even then knowing
happiness doesn’t last.
I remember telling myself,
sweetheart, remember.
And I remember. It’s so beautiful
it hurts. I remember.
In Julie & Carla’s Living Room
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged games, laughter, music, wedding on June 10, 2023| 4 Comments »
The night before they renew their vows,
Julie and Carla sit in matching chairs,
kazoos in hand, playing “Come On, Eileen”
and greatest hits from Fleetwood Mac.
Around them, we play our own kazoos—
“Who Let the Dogs Out” and “Lady Marmalade.”
The night doesn’t care if we can’t
guess each other’s songs.
It cares nothing for wrong or right.
it cares only that we laugh,
that we meet each other
with the hum of warmth, with joy,
that we honor what happens
when two people grow their love
and share it with the world.
For an hour, we hang on each other’s notes.
Long after, we hang on the laughter.
Hearing a Beloved Song Again
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Kayleen Asbo, music, song on April 1, 2023| Leave a Comment »
for Kayleen
Sometimes after many dawns
a song returns to the heart
and brings with it a new sweetness,
as if in its absence it went to a faraway place
and bathed in turquoise and gold
and rolled in honey and then waded in petals,
as if it has been spending time
amongst ripe fields of wheat
and swimming in the perfume of love.
When a song returns like that,
it finds new ways to sing in us,
and once again our heart becomes
concert hall, resonant, spacious, ringing,
and then it becomes the song.
Sitting in the Driveway with My Daughter
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, daughter, mother, music, paradox on February 20, 2023| 8 Comments »
You share with me the song
that makes you cry.
Oh strange alchemy
of connection—
as I tune my heart to yours
what at first seemed dark
and moonless
begins to reveal
its tender light.
Though I Don’t Have an Album (Yet)
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged clothes, dinner, family, music on February 3, 2023| 7 Comments »
Tonight at dinner my daughter and husband
bicker over who will get my plus one ticket
to the Grammys next year. We plan
what we’ll wear to walk the red carpet—
blue for my daughter, no tie for my husband.
I’ll borrow a friend’s green dress and tall boots.
So much to plan already. Where will stay?
Hair down? Rent a car? I wouldn’t want
to meet the moment ill-equipped—
not like this moment in which I am fully prepared
to make an entrance in my slouchy gray sweater
and low, messy bun, prepared to show up
with my short nails and bare face and oud perfume.
I’m so ready for this moment at the dinner table
with its red placemats, homemade mac and cheese,
jazz in the air and quirky conversation.
I don’t even have an album, yet,
and already I know I’m a winner.
When Donavan Plays Classical Guitar
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged guitar, heart, music, opening, spaciousness on January 25, 2023| 2 Comments »
for Donavan Dailey
The heart perhaps thought it was open
until a moment of silence is followed by fingers
flying across nylon strings and then, with no warning,
the heart breaks open as a high alpine meadow in June,
splays wide as a snow-deep cirque midwinter,
is exposed as a woman sitting in the first row
with tears spilling down her cheeks.
The heart does not question why,
it simply opens, wider, lets the secret tango
move through its channels as only
a secret tango can do—dancing the heart
ever closer to the moment until, beating wild,
the heart forgets it could ever be anything
but spontaneous as jazz, honest as the man
being played by his guitar, expansive
as the silence that shimmers in the air
just after the last note rings.
Unsolid
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged body, daughter, music, stone, wind on November 16, 2022| 11 Comments »
After I’ve spent a whole day being stone,
my daughter plays our song on the stereo
and my body is whirlwind, a column of air
spinning round and round, gaining momentum,
and what once was sandstone in me is now dervish,
is dust devil, is momentary phenomenon,
and I barely recall what it’s like to be dense
as I sing and my arms rise and twirl
and I swirl through the room around my girl
thrilling in being this woman on this night,
this spinning delight, this whirling release,
short lived, perhaps, but oh for this twinkling,
I’m windborne, I’m dancing across the horizon
and the wind says, remember, remember this.