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Posts Tagged ‘singing’

Noel, Noel

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on December 26, 2025| 8 Comments »


 
for Diane
 
Though my fingers fumble through
the joyful and triumphant chords,
though the notes are too high
for me to sing without stridence,
and though Diane’s alto is no longer
steady as it was over twenty years
ago when we began this Christmas ritual,
still we snuggle side by side
on the black lacquer bench
and harmonize through the deep
and dreamless sleep and the child
who shivers in the cold, we sing
of hopes and fears of all the years
and though we are clumsy and stilting
and downright not good, we are singing
through the darkest part of the year,
through this tender time for us all.
The light of an ancient star shines inside us.
And as we stumble, we laugh and
sing that light back to the world.
 

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When Bert Sends Me an Mp4

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on October 29, 2025| 6 Comments »


 
 
Though she’s been dead more than a year,
Donna sings to me through the recording,
her voice bold as she belts into Ladder Canyon
a song of celebration and goodbye.
The cancer by then was a longtime companion.
She laughs as the lyrics bounce off of sandstone,
and then she starts leaving space for listening:
And all I’ve done      (   I’ve done      I’ve done  )
for want of wit      (  of wit      of wit   ).
When the first verse is sung, she exclaims,
“That was fantastic!” Years later, the echo
resounds, though it comes in the sound
of my own voice pealing around my own room,
“That was fantastic!”  I shout back. And it was.
Fantastic to feel her again in the drums of my ears,
in the hum of my throat, in the thrum of my blood.
Fantastic to hear her singing those words we have sung
together how many thousands of times. But this time,
Donna’s not singing to blend. She’s shouting it out
like a shanty, haunted by shadows and lit up by life.
I’m so stunned by her voice, I don’t even try to sing along.
I absorb every wave of her, as if I could take her all in
and not have to give her back to death.
I play it again and again. Every time, I echo back,
“That was fantastic.” And by that, I mean the echo
in the canyon. I mean the song. I mean the gift
of hearing her voice again. Fantastic. I mean her life.
Fantastic. I mean her. I mean her. I mean her.

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Dear Mr. Whitman,

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on September 20, 2025| 13 Comments »


 
 
I want to hear America singing
all those varied carols you mentioned.
But it’s noise now, Walt, more shouting
than song. As if volume makes a leader.
Any singer knows being louder
just makes discord, and harmony
needs constant attunement
to every other singer.
I want to hear America listening.
Want a citizen chorus that knows
our voices are only as good as our ears.
I want a new song that begins
with a silence that stretches
from sea to sea—like the silence
right before the curtains part
when the whole body leans in
to wonder what comes next.
And when the many parts do arise,
glorious in their differences,
I want to hear inside them
the careful attention that tunes
them to each other, I want
to hear in our song the deep listening
that makes even dissonance
beautiful.

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Fräulein

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 20, 2025| 4 Comments »

Just because it’s a song about a man leaving a woman
and realizing he still loves her doesn’t mean

it isn’t also a song about a mother and a daughter
singing their hearts out in a car, both of us

falling in love with what the human voice can do
and what a song can do when two people choose

to sing it together, over and over, until it becomes
our anthem, until it becomes the glue in something

larger than we are, something less about the words
and more about the transmission of love,

the shared moments in which we come together
to sing it, you on the melody with Tyler Childers,

me on the harmony with Colter Wall. And the more
we sing it, the more I’m in love not just with the song,

but with you, because no matter what the song is about,
it’s our song, and we choose to sing it again and again,

because joy, because the way two voices come together
as one, even out of tune, because, Fräulein, this song is ours.

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One Ever-Changing Pressure

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on April 4, 2025| Leave a Comment »

bless the accordion heart—
whether it opens or closes
it’s all a chance to sing

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Strange But True Ways We Connect, Part I

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 10, 2025| 6 Comments »


 
 
It was Daiva, curled in the armchair like a cat,
who began to sing the seventies’ jingle for Meow Mix,
meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow,
and instantly we all joined her as if we were singing
the national anthem, or Happy Birthday, or Old Lang Syne—
simple joy in the simple tune that brought us back to,
what, Saturday morning cartoons? To a time when
life seemed playful as a tabby cat singing for its meal?
Such cheap joy in this one-word lyric, almost embarrassing,
really, the intense pleasure in this commercial riff
that somehow sewed itself into our memory,
so much joy we rolled on the floor in laughter,
holding our sides as if to keep all that pleasure
from spilling out, but spill out it did, innocent and silly,
as if we knew we were being played by ad men, but didn’t care,
as if laughter itself is the most potent of currencies
when shared, as if by singing a song together—
whether jingle or anthem—the singing itself is what
helps us come closer to each other’s humanity.
And so, days later, when Daiva sends a two-word email
that begins with, MEOW, my heart opens. And though she’s
far away, I hear her giggle and I sing along.

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The Great Chorus

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on February 18, 2025| 4 Comments »


 
 
We all live together in a home
in which the rooms are
made of song. Fierce
songs of resistance. Wounded
songs that rise like sirens and
drown out every other song, till
once again, we hear the tendrilled
song of opening. Chants
of freedom. Wild song
of belonging. Sweet lullaby
of trust. What moment cannot
be met through song? Even
the greatest heartache, even
the greatest joy, even
the smallest hope knows
itself not only by its melody, but
by who is willing to sing along and
who is courageous enough to listen.

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One Stifled

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 27, 2025| 8 Comments »


 
this winter
I’ve turned into a river
beneath the ice, so much song

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Instead of Losing Faith          

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 25, 2025| 16 Comments »


for K., Ubi caritas est vera, Deus ibi est.
 
 
After all the hours of dressing up
and combing our hair and trying
to show our best face to the world,
we find ourselves bare, naked,
haunted, and painfully, wondrously clear,
full of visions and limitations, aware
of the great invitation to be kind. And
if we’re lucky, we burn with hope.
 
It isn’t safe, this life. Don’t let anyone
tell you otherwise. But if you are able,
as you listen to the screaming, sing.
Sing through the walls. Sing of miracles,
healing and light. Sing. Because when
all else is ash, still, we can sing. We can sing.

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No Wonder I Woke Singing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on December 5, 2024| 11 Comments »


for Donna
 
 
I saw you last night in my dream.
We were singing, of course.
The strange part is we were floating
in inner tubes in your home
which was flooded. I was worried,
but you didn’t seem bothered.
The smile never left your face.
The water was clear and we could see
to the bottom where the rugs
and chairs and tables were still in place.
We paddled around the room
and sang with our friends. God,
it was good to sing with you again,
me still here in the flood of the world
and you teaching me to sing
through it all. Teaching me
smiling is still possible. Teaching me
even the weight of grief can float.

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