for David Winters, a singer/guitarist and champion of
labor.
We are jolted awake and
suddenly flinch
at the unpardonable beauty of
emptiness.
Someone has sneaked away in
the evening.
David is gone with our music.
Someone has absconded with
the air,
the air like Bach’s.
An air, an aria, a ballad, a
song,
someone has taken the music.
Now …
Who will bring the music?
The swollen river of music
has dried up. We are facing a
drought.
We know about droughts;
they are what we do.
We know about conserving our
resources in a dry spell.
We know about the invisible
springs that must be fed
and the impervious earth
that must be opened.
So that it can drink again.
Who will bring the music?
The music of hope and the
music
of we-can-and-must–be-better,
the truest politics of love
and rescue
and solidarity and trust.
Who will bring the music now?
Our brother is asking us.
He has a smiling guitar
and laughing fingers and
the pledge
that nothing will be left
unsung.
Who will bring the Music?
We have been thrown. We have
been thrown
into this orphanage of
silence.
Tony will bring the quickness
Jeff will bring the slow
Bonnie will bring the outcry
and
Mathilda will bring the hope.
Nora will bring the struggle
and
Doug will bring the history
and
Bruce will bring the joy.
Katherine will bring the
care.
Ruth will bring the honesty
and Marv will bring the
justice.
Rachel will bring the facts.
You will bring the honey and
Chris will bring the bees.
Jane will bring the scrutiny.
Brian will bring the
patience.
Ron will bring the acts
and Sherry will bring the
pulse.
Mardi will bring the motion
and Tim Jenkins will bring
community.
Dan will bring the ocean
and Micah will bring the
bikes and
Debbie will bring the wild.
Celia will bring the must
and Peter will bring the may
and Laurie will bring the
empathy.
Jimmie will bring the now
and I will bring confusion
and that’s everything we
need. Oh …
Keith will bring the force
that drives the flower
through its stem. But
Who will bring the music?
Sometimes we forget the
music.
Sometimes we are too busy to
fold it into our purses and
pockets.
It seems too heavy for us
It seems to be unnecessary
and an afterthought,
but the music is always
before thought.
The music is the habitat of
thought.
But now
Who will bring the music?
The birds will come.
The sea will come with its
music.
The voices of need will come
with their music
The children will come with
their music
The insects will come
The wind will come
The ones who work will bring
their music
The ones who struggle
The ones who are victims and
the ones
who are heroes: all of them
will
bring their music.
All they ask is that we
listen.
We have been thrown! We
have been thrown.
The ordinary miracles
that we took for granted …
the things we take which
we forgot were gifts.
He was always dragging us
through the garden, always
warming us
with his sweet smile. Now
Who will bring the music?
Why is it
we never see the dark stars
that do not shine
but are invisible and pulling
us
and pushing us. We know them
by
their influence, by what we
become
in their presence.
Who will bring the music?
Every sense is touching us
somehow.
and they radiate away into
invisibility,
from actual touch with finger
then tongue
to the brief hover of smell
above us
to the capture of eyes by
something that appears to us.
But sound can be invisible.
It is touching from around
the corner.
It can come from shyness,
from humility.
So we do not always see
Who will bring the music?
until they come to us
around the corner.
We often overlook them.
And they can disappear just
as quickly
as they come.
But they a leave a trace of
sound
even when their physical
presence
is a mist and an evaporation.
Who will bring the music?
We will
We will keep the promise
that he made.
We must keep this promise.
We will bring the music.
No comments:
Post a Comment