The nearest I get to singing is when words begin to spin,
and the voices in my head wind up from low gear into high,
till my ears can hear them muttering in the meaning of a song.
The nearest I get to singing is with the sound of waves
breaking endlessly on the farthest shore from home,
and remembering is the same pulse beating in my veins.
The nearest I get to singing is when thinking finds its tongue
and speaks in harmonics through the air columns of a room
while rhythm and cadence wait for the music that will come.
The nearest I get to singing is when the pen inside my heart
inscribes its darkening letters in a scrawl across my page
and the paper’s light is changed with every line I write.
On the face of it, I can’t sing. But I can… in private, those moments while driving cranking out some tune along with its digital reality… groaning words and notes to my own guitar. I’ve been a bass-player, I’ve written a song or tune or two.
But the confident voice eludes me. Never mind that everything written to be spoken and performed has its music and that, when I write or perform the spoken word, I’m looking for the song. I’m singing somewhere inside.
This is just the approximation. One of many…
and the voices in my head wind up from low gear into high,
till my ears can hear them muttering in the meaning of a song.
The nearest I get to singing is with the sound of waves
breaking endlessly on the farthest shore from home,
and remembering is the same pulse beating in my veins.
The nearest I get to singing is when thinking finds its tongue
and speaks in harmonics through the air columns of a room
while rhythm and cadence wait for the music that will come.
The nearest I get to singing is when the pen inside my heart
inscribes its darkening letters in a scrawl across my page
and the paper’s light is changed with every line I write.
© BH, 2023
On the face of it, I can’t sing. But I can… in private, those moments while driving cranking out some tune along with its digital reality… groaning words and notes to my own guitar. I’ve been a bass-player, I’ve written a song or tune or two.
But the confident voice eludes me. Never mind that everything written to be spoken and performed has its music and that, when I write or perform the spoken word, I’m looking for the song. I’m singing somewhere inside.
This is just the approximation. One of many…
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