Songbird
To think in song again...
the urge flirts and wanes, waits
for an albatross, a Loch, love,
leave me in pursuit of language.
Yes, I’ve tried crossing my fingers.
There’s chanting.
There’s stillness.
I’m receptive to sunlight. If
if I could just photosynthesize, if
time were on my side.
Today, I’ll sing by tending a garden -
an opera of leaves.
Picture this — the voice of everything
slack-jawed and Evergreen.
Part of me is always hungry to be writing more music. It used to come relatively easily to me, that is, before I realized what music meant to me. Previously, it felt like I was at a supermarket with an overabundance of ideas where any one will do. Now, I feel more called to explore a particular element of music and that makes ideas a bit harder to come by. I like to think this happened because of a level of discernment… but that may be more self-credit than is due.
This poem is the product of an unproductive songwriting attempt and is in conversation with “the muse” so to speak. I love what Nick Cave and his wife Susie say about muses in this little piece.