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| Ger Stallenberg |
Plainsong
Stop. Along this path, in phrases of light,
trees sing their leaves. No Midas touch
has turned the wood to gold, late in the year
when you pass by, suddenly sad, straining
to remember something you’re sure you knew.
Listening. The words you have for things die
in your heart, but grasses are plainsong,
patiently chanting the circles you cannot repeat
or understand. This is your homeland,
Lost One, Stranger who speaks with tears.
It is almost impossible to be here and yet
you kneel, no one’s child, absolved by late sun
through the branches of a wood, distantly
the evening bell reminding you, Home, Home,
Home, and the stone in your palm telling the time.
Carol Ann
Duffy
“Trees sing their leaves”. Is that true for
us too? Do we sing through our actions, through our movements, through the
things we make and say? Is there a melody in how we do our daily tasks, in our
work? I get the image of a street full of people, their music colliding and
harmonizing - winding, weaving, circling and rising up. An image, but the fact
is, everything we do has an effect, a consequence, a percussion you could say,
a sound. Music isn't so far-fetched. That line, "The words you have for
things die in your heart, but the grasses are plainsong, patiently chanting the
circles you cannot repeat or understand." just hits me. So often there are
no words for what what's in us, yet listening to or watching the trees or the
waving grasses embodies those unnamed thoughts. Being among these there is
release, rest. The earth expresses what escapes us, what dodges the encumbrance
of words, and gives us a movement and sound, a music. "This is your
homeland." How beautiful. "Lost One"," Stranger who speaks
with tears", "no one's child" - "through the branches of a
wood...Home, Home." Earth and earthling together, singing - Home.
