An occasion occurred this week that solidified
my decision to limit my singing to the grounds at Merry Mount. This decision is bitter/sweet but has
reminded me of pertinent words penned by two giant poets: Frost and
Whitman. I offer you their words:
The Oven Bird
Poetry by Robert Frost
There
is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud,
a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who
makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He
says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer
is to spring as one to ten.
He
says the early petal-fall is past
When
pear and cherry bloom went down in
showers
On
sunny days a moment overcast;
And
comes that other fall we name the fall.
He
says the highway dust is over all.
The
bird would cease and be as other birds
But
that he knows in singing not to sing.
The
question that he frames in all but words
Is
what to make of a diminished thing.
From Walt
Whitman
I tramp a
perpetual journey, (come listen all!)
Not words
of routine this song of mine,
But
abruptly to question, to leap beyond yet nearer
bring…
I,
chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,
Taking
all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond
them,
A
reminiscence sing.
Comrades
Poetry by Patrick Woliver
At
the first glimpse of the Evening star, Thrush music!
The
road behind me seems distant,
yet somehow short.
It
glistens as the last of the light of the sun magnifies
each grain of sand.
Wildflowers
stretch toward heaven, striving to retain
their beauty. Thrush music returns!
O
ageless singer, I, like comrades before me, know
your song. I understand your music.
But
as I look toward the sunset, I savor the
magnificence of the remaining light.
At this time of closure, I wish to voice
gratitude for my “Comrades”: Rett, Lee, and Robert; and to Pete for his genius
displayed in his musical setting of The
Oven Bird.
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