Requiem
That it begins.
And like a wave which appears
only to lose itself
in dispersal, rising whole again
yet incomplete in all but
form, it returns.
Music. The true magic.
Each day the sun passes over the river,
bringing warmth to it. Such
devotion inspires movement: a cello in the
darkness, the passage of sparrows. Sighs.
The currents are of our own
making. If we listen do we also
hear? These bodies. These silent voices.
* * *
“Requiem” was written in the 80s, in response to a piece of music. It made its first appearance here in February 2015.
Something so serene in your words. Beautiful.
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Thank you, Amy. Sometimes the words just seem to flow that way.
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Love this!
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Thank you, V.J.
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Lovely and inspiring. :o)
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Grazie! So pleased you like it.
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beautiful
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Thank you, Maureen.
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Beautiful. Had you not mentioned it, I would have asked why it seemed so musical.
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The piece was John Rutter’s “Requiem,” quite a shift from my rock and roll norm back then. But it moved me.
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“If we listen do we also hear?” Hmm…
I was just reading in Scientific American (the quintessential purveyor of “physics for poets” (:) about quantum entanglement and the uncertainty principle. Somehow, the theory seems to apply to your question (of course, if I actually understood how, I would be a physicist rather than a poet — though, if I were a physicist I would surely find this analogy tiresome/irrelevant… which is a decided short-coming of physicists, when it comes right down to it… Haha!). But seriously, what an amazing question! Both because of and despite their respective definitions’ entanglement, in that neither can exist without the another, listening also necessarily precludes some vital properties of hearing, and vice versa.
In the face of Uncertainty (as nothing *is*, so much as it *isn’t*), we become the movements, the songs, the very circumstance of fundamental incompleteness that impels us to respond, saying “Je ne sais pas (pour)quoi…”
Only in our unending search for the lost heart might we navigate the trace of its repose.
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That subtle distinction between “hearing” and “listening,” with all their baggage included, often separates the is from the isn’t. Powerful stuff.
And your last line! Beautifully said.
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i seem often to regain heart only for it to be scuppered by some new input that beams in out of the morass of confusion out in the world, it feels like a perpetual learning to process, which leaves you in a no state of uncertainty, poised between is & isn’t until the feeling is right for you to move on.
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That eternal quest for balance…
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Balance has become about accepting chaos and experiencing different emotions rather than questing for continual happiness.
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For me it’s about finding order in the chaos, and seeking internal and external harmony. Perpetual happiness doesn’t interest me, or at least I don’t believe it can exist without a counterbalance.
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happiness is easy, people ought to try being sad, by choice, things get interesting then.
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Reblogged this on On My Feet and commented:
I really love this one…
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Thank you for your kind words and for reblogging!
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My pleasure!
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Beautiful!
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Thank you, Nadia.
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“a cello in the
darkness”–very evocative, and elegantly put.
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Thanks, FD.
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COOL PHOTO! Thanks for sharing…
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Thank you. The photos are from morguefile.com.
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Beautifully soothing
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Thank you very much.
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Beautiful.
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Thanks, Chris.
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the line break between ‘to lose itself / in dispersal’ is very simple but it felt like a cadence, or when you go down a small hill with some speed & without prior knowing & your stomach seems to gambol.
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When I wrote this I was just beginning to understand the power of lines.
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i think it was when i read Louis Gluck say something along the lines of: our sense for line breaks is as developed as previous generations’ sense of rhyme & metre. i realized the importance of the contemporary line then & buckled down.
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Louise Gluck would know – her lines are divine.
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haven’t read a great deal, but what i have, i feel in good hands.
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