ETIAP 4

EVERY THOUGHT IS A PRAYER

Week 4: Melodia

Melodia, originally from my Thirty Birds collection, is one of eight poems that I have kept memorized over the years; these are also the bases for the eight simple prayers shared in Week 1.  Let me step into character...

01/22: Pitch, Part 1
01/23: Gnostos, Agnostos
01/24: Preaching To The Choir
01/25: Melodia
01/26: Simorgh
01/27: Pitch, Part 2
01/28: Moleskin 1.4: As I Write This...


01/22:

Pitch, Part 1

(from a college notebook)

—I don’t want no characters. I’m not going to have any.

—What do you mean? You’ve got to have characters.

—No I don’t. I don’t want any. I want to be alone.

—What are you going to do then? You can’t just sit there.

—Yes I can. Why can’t I?

—You’ve got to have a plot. You need action.

—No. Who’s writing this thing anyway?

—What about a title?

—What about it?

—Nothing. Forget it.



—Exactly. I’m not going to have a setting either. And no diction and no conflict and no theme.

—What about an audience? You’re not going to have an audience either.

—Yes. Yes I will.

—No, no you’re not. You know, with no plot you never could call this, this whatever it is, a story. And now if you say there’s no theme, then you can’t really call it anything.

—I don’t want to call it anything. You’re the one trying to call it something.

—Okay, never mind. But the point is, who’s going to care? Who’s going to give a shit? If it won’t have any substance why should anyone bother.

—I don’t want substance. I especially don’t want the shit.

—Right. But you want an audience. You just said that you even expect one.



—That’s right. But let me tell you something. Maybe this will make you see. Last Tuesday I was taking a walk through the park. It was noon and I saw this old bum curled up on the edge of the sidewalk, eyes closed, not doing anything. And I stared at him for a little while. He didn’t move. Flies landed on him and he didn’t brush them away. He might have been dead.

—Maybe he was.

—I don’t know. But I stood there and stared at him for I don’t know how long and he never did move. He was positioned in such a way that I couldn’t tell whether he was breathing or not. I think he was alive though. I’m pretty sure he had some sort of soul.

—But what’s the point?

—Maybe there is none.

—So what are you trying to say?

—I’m not trying to say anything. I’m just saying it, there was a bum in the park and I happened to notice him and I think he had a soul.

—And for that you think you’ll have an audience.

—Hey look. Someone will notice this some day and maybe even several people will stop and stare and eventually someone will tell somebody else, like I just told you. They’ll even come up with the standard speculations: he looks dead, but I think he’s alive. He’s just a bum, but what was he yesterday and what will he be tomorrow? Who knows? Who cares? Maybe it’s a mental illness, or maybe it’s a statement of choice ...or maybe he really is dead. He’s motionless, but he’s got a soul. People will wonder, I promise. Wait and see.



01/23:

Gnostos, Agnostos

The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark,
When neither are attended...
— Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

Eclipsing black, as if in punishment,
With a heaviness he tarries through the winter,
Eating scraps by the altar, praying unrelentingly
Loud to God in case there’s something in it.

He knows who to harass and who to flatter,
He’s learned to ride the sheep and avoid the fox
And he shows he’s smart enough to get the water
But cursed to never quench his thirst with rocks.
 
He casts his lot with murderers, pretending
To portend with all the ravens and jackdaws,
Like every soul, it seems he’s doomed to die,
Unsaved from an inevitable ending
And unable to impress the passersby
Who miss the meaning of his revenant caws.



01/24:

Preaching To The Choir

Good morning.

I’ve got a song for you today.   It’s a little song that doesn’t have any music, just words, but it’s something I’d like to share with you if I may.

I’m a little nervous though.   It isn’t easy to stand up and sing, or talk, or share things, and I’m really not much of a singer, but here I am, learning as I go...

I’d like to believe it gets easier.  Believe, that’s all I’ve got to begin with.  It’s all any of us has: we believe that God takes care of us, then we believe a little more, that maybe, just maybe, God smiles on us when we sing.  We of little faith: We are the sparrows.

I remember the songs we used to sing when they brought the offering plates up.  Praise God from whom all blessings flow. We give thee but thine own.  It’s as easy as that.  God smiles on us, and that gives us a reason to smile.  We are the face of God.



I’ve noticed your smiles, too.  Some of you put beautiful music to the words: thank you for what you do.  Some of you are on the sidelines: you are the teachers and coaches and parents, and your music is just as beautiful in the ways you cheer on and encourage.  Some of you do not have loud voices, but you share beautiful songs, too, in the way you use your hands and your talents, or in the time and the care you give.  And then some of you are at your best when you’re singing in the pews.  I’ve noticed that it gets even easier to sing when we hear everyone around us.  We all have songs to share.  We are the choir.

My song today is a poem. It’s about a sparrow who gets in God’s face about joining the choir.  And God puts him in his place.



01/25:

Melodia

And God is revealed...

     I

Lowly sparrow, you in your stubble field
Are God’s example and encouragement
To stand behind a thinly-feathered shield
With nothing more as an accouterment
Than simple faith in what tomorrow brings:
All things are set before you, every seed
And sunray comes delivered without strings;
God will provide you everything you need
But gives you more, the time and voice to sing!
Sing boldly, bird, across the stubble field,
Show us your color and your gilded wing,
Your air of confidence, that all may yield
And pause, to see what stands behind the fable
Of fearlessness and food at every table.

     II

The sparrow chirps, “But who am I to be
The center of attention?  I believe
Your story: God is good, even to me,
And daily God provides, and I receive
Abundantly beyond what I deserve,
But that’s the point.  You call on me to sing
For all I’m worth; you’re telling me to serve
In song as if my voice made everything
Acceptable, but take a look at me:
My feathers are the shades of sand and dirt,
My wings are short and my ability
To fly will never take me far from earth,
And now you’re asking me to join the choir
Of angels, as if song could take me higher?”

     III

Yes, little sparrow, by your very word
You are acceptable; indeed, you were before
The first note of your song was ever heard,
But you will please your maker even more
If you will sing.  Sing loud for all you’re worth,
But louder still for all that you’ve been given:
From seed and stubble of your mother earth,
To air and sunshine sent to you from heaven,
For every camouflage and coloring
Designed to keep you safely unrevealed,
For all the intricacies of your wing
Designed to let you navigate the field.
O sparrow, sparrow, know that you are gifted
And by your song the whole world is uplifted.



01/26:

Simorgh

Only after completing the first draft of my first book of poems and giving the book a title did I discover that "Thirty Birds" was a legendary bird-king from 12th century Persia.  The story was told 800 years ago in a 4500 line poem called Bird Parliament by Farid ud-Din Attar. Briefly, all the birds go on a quest to find their king. The journey is difficult, and only thirty birds make it up the final mountain, where they find their king, Simorgh, or "Thirty Birds," is nothing but a reflection of themselves.... 01/27:

Pitch, Part 2

—Is that your story? Kind of depressing. And you can’t just end it like that.

—Settle down. That’s not my ending. It’s not even my story.

—Whatever.

—Right.

—So will you bring your readers to any conclusion?

—No. No one ever does, really.

—Now that’s arguable. Platitudinous even.

—Of course it is. Everything is.

          .....


—So that’s your story.

—I told you, call it what you will.



—But it is a story you know. Whether you pretend it’s something else or not.

—That’s your conclusion. But it sounds like you changed your position.

—Sure. You’ve got everything in it that you said you wouldn’t have.

—What are you saying?

—There’s theme, there’s conflict of characters, style, even a plot of sorts...

—All incidental, I tell you.

—...and you’ve got lots of thought.

—All incidental.

—What do you mean, incidental? It’s there, isn’t it? And you said it wouldn’t be.

—But there’s no one here.

—Sure there is. Me and you. And an audience, maybe.

—No, there’s no audience. Not now. The audience hasn’t come by yet. They will, later, but not now.

—And I suppose we’re two bum characters on the edge of the sidewalk.

—No. There are no characters.

—What are we?

—We’re the writer of course.

—But we’re fighting. There’s conflict, so we must be characters.

—No, we’re just the writer. We’re just words.



01/28:

Moleskin 1.4: As I Write This...

As I write this I am sitting on the edge of a river.  I have found myself here many times, perched pretentiously where the Fisher King wept, where Siddhartha attained peace, where many before me have waited and drawn pictures in the sand.  There is a river in every big city, it seems, and streams across every page of history, throughout the world and even into the realms of mythology and legend.  I like a big river, an important river that connects with all others, a river with a famous name and a powerful flow.  Give me Mark Twain's river, but let me find it as Huck did, a few miles out of town; let me sit along its rich banks with nothing but time, away from instructions and factories, unconcerned with obligations and inheritances.  Let this be my Stillwater, full of life and purpose, with destiny beneath its gentle surface, and tomorrow I may weep and seek and wait along these banks, but for today, let me know this river's simple serenity.