What you choose to do with it

Thirty three years I've played guitar,
my wagon hitched to no bright star,
the violin, for thirty-two, the clarinet, piano too;
tried dobro, like my father played;
picked out some banjo in the shade;
for music I have had no lack,
kept listening and looking back
to find that key trapped in my youth:
some secret sign, some hidden truth
that I was destined to become
more than just parts combined in sum.

In short, I've sought the entire score;
with each new page, I've wanted more
than just to play a single line:
the whole of music, I've made mine,
crossed genres, styles and eras, too,
in search of something whole and new
that could express some of the bliss
I felt when hearing the strings hiss,
the sense of purpose when the note
turned into more than what I wrote
and reached to the waiting world,
a rebel flag unloosed, unfurled
to challenge what I could become.

I would not stand still, deaf and dumb,
and listen, passive, to the sound
that rooted me up through the ground
and raised my head up through the clouds
convincing me what was allowed
was more than singing one sad song,
or worse, to sing one's whole life long
the same refrain time and again
to reassure family and friends
that their songs were the same as mine;
some folks can do it, and that's fine,
so long as one's own melody
is left to grow and wander free
beyond the cage of method books,
beyond the shadows, where one looks
not for brief comfort, but to find
the source for heart, and soul, and mind,
some purpose for the being here.

In listening, I've found it clear
it makes no difference if it shakes
the ground, or is filled with mistakes,
because each note stands on its own,
neither a copy or a clone
but part of an unending scale
that unwinds slowly, without fail;
it is created, never found,
like one's own self, set free, unbound
by what you choose to do with it
between the time you start, and quit.

01 JAN 2007

With my 42nd birthday rapidly approaching, I suppose I've been thinking about having a midlife Chrysler. Truth is, though, that I have been going through one for quite some time now. When anyone in the prime of life is writing things like "Cast my stars as void of course" particularly considering such feelings of non-anchorage PRIOR to being dislocated thanks to a Hurricane, that's a pretty good sign that things are not all that settled in Selfville. At some point, you end up quoting yourself, which is considerably more embarrassing once you remember how foolish you were at the time of the original utterance. The vanity of hope, I once said, is the religion of the young. Such a bitter person I used to be. I thought I'd heard it all. And then, I started listening. What is it that Solomon said? "Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom?" Bah. The beginning of wisdom is when you stop worrying that you might BE God. If you're not, ain't nothing you can do about it. If you are, you'd better get used to it, and take some responsibility. Perhaps that's what the serenity prayer is REALLY all about.