It’s poetry set to music … come hear Heartbeat in concert. Seven women singing all genres of music, a cappella.
Here’s a link to an article about our group and what one might expect at the concert.
Posts Tagged ‘singing’
Heartbeat in Concert, March 31, 6:30 p.m. Telluride, Ah Haa School
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged a cappella, Heartbeat, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, singing, Telluride on March 25, 2015| 1 Comment »
For an Hour, at Least, on Thanksgiving
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged family, love, poem, poetry, singing, thanksgiving on November 28, 2014| 1 Comment »
I hear America singing, varied carols I hear.
–Walt Whitman
After the mashed potatoes were passed
and after the wine was sipped from the glass
and after the children had left their plates
and before we were ready for pie and cake
we sat around the table and sang
Hotel California, Scarborough Fair,
Morning Has Broken, Walk the Line,
Blister in the Sun, Wild Mountain Thyme
Moon River and My Romance,
Blood on the Saddle, If I Were a Rich Man,
and the words we didn’t know we hummed
or we la-dee-dahed until we found
a phrase to lead us in again.
It’s so like music, gratitude,
the way it draws us closer in
and makes the world feel intimate,
as if anything could happen,
even peace, even love.
What We Practice While Singing A Capella
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged a capella, communion, music, singing, unity on June 7, 2014| Leave a Comment »
for Heartbeat
Here, rest in my voice
on this note we share.
And when you breathe,
I will carry the song.
And when I breathe
I know you’ll be there.
And this is how
the song goes on.
And this is how
we disappear.
Liederkreis, Opus 24
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Liederkreis, music, piano, poem, poetry, Schumann, singing, song on September 17, 2013| 1 Comment »
Cosi e’, se vi pare
(That’s the way it is, if it seems that way to you)
—Italian saying
Under my fingers,
the chords are familiar,
allegretto, in 2/4 time.
I lean into the ritardandos,
swelling the passing tensions,
failing to remember to exhale.
The lyrics, perhaps because
they are in German,
are beautiful. I can forget
that they speak of sleepless
nights and helplessness,
and dreams that languish
unfulfilled. My voice drifts
into the rafters. What
do I know of dreams?
There is so much I do not know.
Even this life I call my own.
What do I know of it?
Who taught them to sing,
the birds in autumn?
Who taught them to dance,
the leaves? Tonight, I do not see them,
the shadows my voice moves through
as I follow the staffs in front of me.
Nor do I think of translation. Nor
do I think of who is listening,
nor of who is not. For now,
there is Schumann and Heine,
there is this voice that is borrowing me,
there is this song that says
it must be sung.
Frightened at the Edge
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cancer, fear, poem, poetry, river, singing, surgery on March 4, 2013| 3 Comments »
We were better at it then.
On the muddy desert river
in our yellow rubber boat,
you would sit in front
and I would sit in back
and as our bow
would slide onto the glossy
slick tongue of the rapid,
we’d begin to sing.
Opera. Neither of us
knew a thing about opera,
except that it made us feel
invincible to sing the highest
notes we could hit and to hear
each other trilling just above
the white roar. We thrilled
at the edge of chaos. Joy
in our ignorance. Confusion
did not seem to have the same
bite it does now when you call
me to say the surgery is Wednesday
and you’ll know then if the three tumors
are malignant. I do not sing
when you tell me. Nor after we hang up,
unless you call whimpering song.
Which perhaps it is, though I do not
feel brave, standing on the edge
of this new chaos, you in front
again, this current much stronger
than we can paddle against. I feel
our humanity, how the end is all
wrapped up in the middle,
the beginning, how little we know
and how fragile we are. I look
out the skylight at the buds
on the cottonwood trees.
They are swelling, though not
yet green. They do not resemble
what they will become,
but experience tells us
to expect a bright green unfurling.
We have no experience now
with what comes next. But we
do know how to sing a high warble,
trill it high above the hospital hum.
I am rusty, but mustering the voice
to sing to you from here,
even though I no longer believe
it will keep us from sinking.
After Seeing Godspell, Les Miserables and Zikr Dance in One Weekend
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dance, Godspell, in love with the world, life, musical, poem, poetry, singing, Zikr on February 3, 2013| 2 Comments »
It starts in the shower at the Hot Springs Pool.
I am singing about the water, how good it feels,
so warm on my shoulders. I am aware there
are other people bathing in nearby stalls,
so I sing it on my breath, a little embarrassed,
but by the time I flounce into the parking lot,
I am singing in full voice to my children to please,
get in the car now, it’s time for lunch. I sashay to avoid
the mud puddles, and unlock the car doors
with a minor flourish of my hand. The car, it hums
a drone for the rest of the days characters
to harmonize against, and so, it seems, the mountains do.
They are singing in the key of February, which is a white,
steep chorus I usually do not hear over the sound
of the radio. But today, it is clear and rousing, and the snow
joins in on the long ride home. Even my son points out
how loud the flakes are as they sing against the panes. At dinner,
I chant to my girl, would you like some pears,
and the offer echoes off the roofbeams. She affirms
with an arpeggio of giggles and so I waltz to the pantry
where the pears croon a late summer sweetness right
out of the jar and onto her plate. It is, perhaps, always
this way, I think, each thing singing its singular song,
and every step a step in the dance in which we all meet
and separate and meet again, turn away and meet again,
and I can’t help but wonder what keeps us
from in every moment wildly clapping, ovation after
ovation, our hands fierce and staccato with praise.
Snippet
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged change, dimeter, loss, memory, poetry, present moment, singing, yielding on May 15, 2012| 3 Comments »
Sing a new song. —Psalm 144:9
That song I sang
so long, so long,
so brimming with
sincerity,
I hardly can
recall the tune …
though it was something
like duh dum,
duh dum, duh duh dum …
or was it duh dah dum
duh dah dum …
I almost forget
I knew the song
at all, except
today a strand
of tune wound round
my thoughts just like
a scarlet ribbon
tied around
the pinkie finger
reminding me
I should remember
something, something
once so vital,
so important
now a blurry
memory.
And then the errant
strand of tune
was gone. Gone?
How could it end?
I sang it everywhere
I went. I lost
myself in its glissando,
fermata, sforzando
and painississimo.
I sang it ferocious,
I sang it tender.
The song, it was
my everything,
That’s all I can
remember.
Featherless but Flying Haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged contentment, darkness, haiku, joy, poem, poetry, singing on March 17, 2012| 3 Comments »
I guess I’d make
a crummy bird … here I am
singing in the darkness.
Taking Note: haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged birds, haiku, happiness, music, poem, poetry, singing on February 22, 2012| 3 Comments »
What Happens When We Sing Together
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged chanting, losing the self, music, poems, poetry, singing on February 15, 2012| 5 Comments »
In a ring of song
I hear your silence
I breathe in your silence
in a ring of song
I lose my singular voice
and become
what is unwritten,
unwritable, endlessly sung—
in the ring of song
there is no note
not worth singing,
there is no tone that’s wrong
in the ring of song
in the ring of song
the song rises and falls
all around us, it rises
and falls inside of us
I breathe in and pull
into my lungs the song
where it mixes with the unborn song
still forming
on my tongue,
in the ring of song
I am no one and if
I am anyone at all
I am one being sung.