that anxiousness
that’s nested in my chest—
singing it a lullaby
Posts Tagged ‘singing’
One Before the Big Adventure
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged adventure, anxiousness, singing on September 13, 2026| 3 Comments »
Spontaneous
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aging, memory, singing on July 27, 2026| 8 Comments »
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?
Listening for the Singing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged giraffe, peace, singing on January 27, 2026| 12 Comments »
Everything and everywhere is all here. It’s always been here.
—Bunkong Tuon, “Year of the Snake”
All the peace that has ever been
and will ever be is here now.
Hard not to focus
on the noose of injustice,
which is, of course, always here, too.
As it has always been.
As it will always be.
To praise the world is to praise it all.
How hard to praise it all.
I have heard giraffes make a low hum
in the night, a way, scientists think,
to help them find each other in the dark.
Perhaps this is why I find myself
singing so much in these darkened days—
a way to call to the others,
let them know as the noose tightens
we are here together.
And when it is especially hard,
I listen. Mostly, I trust peace is always here.
Still the relief to hear the singing.
I know am not alone.
Noel, Noel
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Christmas, family, harmony, singing 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.
Fräulein
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, daughter, music, singing, song 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.
One Ever-Changing Pressure
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, heart, singing on April 4, 2025| Leave a Comment »
bless the accordion heart—
whether it opens or closes
it’s all a chance to sing
Strange But True Ways We Connect, Part I
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cats, commerce, commercial, friendship, singing 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.
The Great Chorus
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged communion, connection, singing, song 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.
One Stifled
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged freedom, restraint, river, singing, voice on January 27, 2025| 8 Comments »
this winter
I’ve turned into a river
beneath the ice, so much song
Instead of Losing Faith
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged faith, love, madness, purpose, singing 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.
No Wonder I Woke Singing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dream, friendship, grief, singing 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.
Oh! de Perfume
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, daughter, driving, family, perfume, singing on November 10, 2024| 4 Comments »
I want to bottle it,
tonight’s drive
with my girl,
both of us singing
full voice,
so when I forget
how good it can be
in this world,
I can dab it
behind my ears
and inhale again
the joy of singing
through the dark
that brazenly,
that together.
While Singing “Parting Glass”
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, harmony, silence, singing on September 6, 2024| 10 Comments »
for D
I spent years
practicing how
to make my voice
disappear
inside hers
so we’d blend—
and though
it’s been a year
since we sang,
it’s only weeks
since she’s gone,
and how strange now
to open my mouth,
to listen for her,
to hear only
myself. And I
can’t stop singing
because it makes
me feel closer
to her to hear
where her voice
would be,
almost like
silence
is now harmony.
Hallelujah
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged music, silence, singing on August 18, 2024| 3 Comments »
after singing in the stadium
with fifty thousand other voices
emerging into the night
to find my own ecstatic
silence
The Opening
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged holiday mathis, inspiration, singing, sky, song on August 7, 2024| 5 Comments »
for Holiday, in the James Turrell Skyspace at Cheekwood Gardens
Each moment of the day
a song is looking for its singer—
song before the eyelids rise,
song of hunger, song of dream,
song of waiting for the phone to ring,
song of groping in the dark,
song of walking through the garden,
song of trying on silver hats,
song of seeing the city’s edge.
And still so often we miss the song,
but today when Holiday
opened her mouth and began
to sing of cumulonimbus,
her clear tune spiraled through the small
white room with such astonishing
rightness I brimmed with gold
and cloud and kin,
her bright-winged notes soaring
in my body like a murmuration,
and I opened like dawn, like sky,
as if when one person dares
to be found by the song of the moment
and sing it true, they teach
the rest of us how to do it, too,
how to sing, sing wild, sing
ourselves alive, as if
it’s what we’re here to do.
The Welcoming
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged food, friendship, singing, welcoming on June 11, 2024| 6 Comments »
for Moudi
With an open umbrella, he met me
in the rain having walked barefoot
to the place where I’d parked.
He handed the umbrella to me.
In the warm bright home,
he offered me a soft, dry chair.
He served warm bread wrapped
in a green and white cloth
and his partner sprinkled zatar
and olive oil on the labne.
The kale salad was crisp
with sweet chunks of beets
and thick creamy slices of avocado.
And in the warm, rich stew
offered to us in a rounded pot,
the eggplant disassembled itself
alongside chickpeas and tomato.
But before we ate, he served us a story
of a place where people begin a meal together
with spontaneous singing of sorrow and praise.
What stopped me then, while I sat at his table,
from singing? So I sing now,
of sorrow that I let my fear of singing it wrong
be louder in me than the urge to sing.
I sing of praise for the second chance.
I sing a prayer for the courage to learn
how to sing a new song, and the chance
to sing it again. And again.
Never Too Late
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged late, singing, the present, time on June 2, 2024| Leave a Comment »
By the time I rise,
it’s well beyond
the edge of day—
the clouds
of morning
burned away,
but I will not
lament the songs
for dew or peace unsung,
instead I’ll sing
into the blue
and keep on singing—