cross-state road trip—
traveling with my daughter
three miles per song
Posts Tagged ‘singing’
One Measure
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, mother, poem, poetry, road trip, singing on June 10, 2019| 3 Comments »
Why I Like Singing the Same Concert Six Times
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Heartbeat, music, poem, poetry, singing, transformation on March 3, 2019| Leave a Comment »
for Heartbeat
singing
the same song,
again,
but this time
the melody
finds in me
a closed,
forgotten place
and sings light
into its tightness
until where
there were walls,
now wings
On Christmas Eve
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Christmas, daughter, hymn, parents, poem, poetry, singing on December 24, 2018| 1 Comment »
We sat in the pew
furthest back in the church.
My father would hum all the hymns
and I’d lean closer to him and hum along,
then lean toward my mother
and sing with her the words—
I swayed between them like a metronome,
humming, then singing, then
humming, then singing.
How giddy I was, grateful to be the girl
between them. I did not yet know how
difficult it was to be a parent.
I only knew how good it felt
to be loved, how safe I felt between them,
how delighted I was to find in myself
some part of each of them,
so delighted that even now,
over forty years later
and a thousand miles away,
I remember that night
and begin to sway.
One While Making Applesauce
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged apples, poem, poetry, singing on October 27, 2018| Leave a Comment »
One Acapella Evening
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Heartbeat, poem, poetry, relaxation, singing on August 26, 2018| Leave a Comment »
One Afternoon with Ulli & Jen
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, poem, poetry, singing on May 17, 2018| Leave a Comment »
singing beside the falls
the sound of the water
drowns out our voices
but that isn’t any reason
to stop singing
Though We Focus So Much on Finding Our Voice
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged breath, poem, poetry, silence, singing, voice on March 29, 2018| Leave a Comment »
The sound of your breath is the quietest of songs.
—Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening
Maybe on that day
when we think, I forgot
to sing, that’s when we
realize that all day long
we harmonized with the world
in the quietest of songs—
joined in without any effort,
no striving at all,
and maybe that is the day
when we stop trying
to be heard and start
to notice the song
inside every other song,
the song inside every other being,
how perfectly in tune we are,
how easily we join—no conductor,
no notes, no beat, just one perfect
air. Maybe that’s the day we hear
the metronome of our own
steady heart and say to it,
I will trust you, feel the truth
of the song as it slips
from our lips, then
rushes in to fill us again.
Big Love
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged being present, poem, poetry, singing on February 15, 2017| 2 Comments »
Why
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged parenting, poem, poetry, singing on January 7, 2017| 6 Comments »
There are yet words that come near the unsayable,
and, from crumbling stones, a new music
to make a sacred dwelling in a place we cannot own.
—Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus, Part Two X
Before bed, my daughter asks me
why in school they learn to sing,
I mean, she says, it’s not like that’s
what we’ll do when we grow up.
And part of me longs to answer her
with stories of my own—
how the stone of our losses dissolves
into tune, how we become wave,
become surge, blur with tone,
how song opens up every door
we might close, how it holds us
when nothing and no one else will.
Instead, I tuck the question
under her pillow as she climbs in bed,
hope it finds the trapdoor into her sleep,
hope the unsayable answer will weave itself
into her dreams like a river,
like light in a forest, like a breeze
in July, like a song that finds the lips
again and again and each time makes them new.
Why I Attend Choir Concerts
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged attitude, choir, connection, depression, poem, poetry, singing on December 11, 2016| 1 Comment »
Walking on the muddy path, I try
to convince myself it would be easy
to be happy. I’m not hurt, my family is well,
and the sun is almost out. I tell myself,
look, look how the ice from last night’s storm
clings to the tips of the branches
and, as it melts, see how the whole world
seems to gather in a drop. But there is a snarl
deep within that is snagged in the thorns,
trapped in the ice, intent on locking itself
out of heaven. It scowls at the wind,
at the sound of the traffic, it grimaces
at the story of itself and retells the same
sad story. It is hours later I notice
how easy it is to fall in love with the world—
how it takes no effort, no convincing at all
to weep at the beauty of hundreds of people
singing together, oh the deep melting,
how the whole world gathers in a drop.
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