There’s such terrifying beauty in song. Terrifying, like when you make yourself completely vulnerable to a girl, when you allow her to level you with nothing more than a glance. It’s strange to think that these tiny waves of vibration in the air can become something so cataclysmic within me. That this sonic phenomenon can so beautifully capture what words have failed to. The people that created this music, did they feel as I feel? Did they hear what they were doing? Did they think of me, when they composed these pieces? Or is my reaction unique to me? Is it something only I can understand? Is that how these things are meant to be? It’s frightening to think how profoundly I am moved by something that is composed of little more than pitches bouncing about in the air. To think how those pitches can speak to me, how I can hear words that are never said. I hear songs that are winter to me, I hear songs that are my individual friends, I hear songs that are my loves. I hear the sun, I hear the sky, I hear the earth. I hear humanity in these sounds. I hear myself in songs so intimate, I cannot tell if the sounds come from within or outside.
Archive for January, 2009
I got out of bed today
Stared all around,
And it did seem in some way
Everything was upside down.
The day rolled along,
And the sun gave to light,
As voices gave to song,
And darkness gave to sight.
And I could see how
All words were broken
Into small bits and wound
Up in twine and spoken
By people who had forgotten
What they ever at all had meant.
But the earth turned so sincerely,
And I loved her sticks and her stones,
That seemed to me
To be one with my bones.
And I watched the trees
Become butterflies
And I waited anxiously
To see what would next fill the sky.
The moon, the clouds,
The winds, the sounds,
The stars, the sun,
The hopes of you, of me, of anyone.
And sure, it may be true
That my vision may be skewed,
But damned if I love it
And I’ll enjoy it just a bit.
revised version of previous poem.
Autumn flows into winter,
As the floes form on the sea,
And snow falls in small flurries,
And the sun sails along, unhurried.
The air here has grown so cold,
Each inhalation bites me,
As my breath leaves me as clouds
To hang in the sky, silent and proud.
The cold winds whip against us,
And the earth hardens and frosts,
The rose has left the soil,
But rises in our cheeks, not yet lost.
The sun meets the horizon
Almost tenderly, and sets.
So the day slips into night,
And this harsh world fades from weary sight.
And night finds us together,
Shielding from all this world’s harm,
The love once found in our hearts,
Now cradled in one another’s arms.
