While I know it may come as a surprise to y’all, I have an admission to make: I love language. I revel in the swoop and cant of words. I delight in the delicious dewdrops of dialect. I collect well-turned phrases as if they were buttercups. I swim in the seas of syntax. I am transformed by the scratches of pens.
It is likely this disposition that makes me love music so much. Talented songwriters sing poetry into motion and strum all of our pain with their fingers. With a few short words they capture the essence of emotion and send it winging back to us on chords of connection.
Which is all just a lead-up to underscore how sad it is when the world loses these manipulators of meaning. In the wake of the passing of Mary Oliver, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, I found myself sitting with pen and paper, trying to channel her spirit. Here’s what my spirit answered in response:
If, perchance, today’s the day
you tip to your toes and –
calves bunching, fingers extended to rigid swords –
you coax the swirling mass of your doubts
to the back of the highest shelf you can reach
squeezed somewhere between
the abandoned dreams
and the carefully-kept love letters from your youth
and, touching down,
the linoleum cool on your bare toes, you turn
to face the dust motes
dancing in the window’s light
and sigh.
If that day has now arrived
shuffling, stammering, eyes downcast
but still arrayed before you in its formal clothes
Do not seize it!
It’s skittish and shy
and surely must sink if startled.
Stand, instead, your toes dug into the floor
your breath controlled
your words held in
your arms open.
Beautiful. Is that a challenge to try to work it into my next song?
ha ha! It’s a lot lighter than the last lyrics 🙂