Week 5: Starry Night Over The Rhone
A convergence of tributaries: Here, in a poem about a painting about a river, is another simple prayer poem, and also one of several “co-opted” poems that have found their ways into songs to listen to again and again.
01/29: Ellipses
01/30: Song To M
01/31: Co-Opted
02/01: Liner Notes To A Starry Night
02/02: Starry Night, Revisited
02/03: Love Beyond Reason
02/04: Moleskin 1.5: Serenity
01/29:
Ellipses
This is my dream, my satisfaction:
the only truth I can control,
the only way I can survive
the lonely nights, the distant silence:
I dream my song into the darkness:
forever listening, waiting,
forever calling, wondering;
I live by sending and receiving.
----
This is my song, my record keeping:
the only way I can hold you.
I send my song into the darkness
and quietly wait for your reply
And in the pause I feel the distance
as lonely as the midnight trees
But with my song I break the silence
and I can feel you close to me.
01/30:
Co-Opted
...This next piece is inspired by brother Josh’s persistent call for submissions of S2L2A&A: songs to listen to again and again. Josh would have everyone in the family compile and circulate annual CD-length lists of our favorite songs, and what a beautiful way of showing and sharing a part of what makes us tick, of celebrating our variety and expanding the awareness of our collective souls. Josh also encourages us, by making this an annual project, to keep adding to our life-list of favorite songs and to think year-round of what might go on our next year’s list. So, one song at a time, I came up with the following twelve...
I am calling this collection “Co-opted,” as it is centered around several of my own poems that I have set to other people’s music. Consider these co-opted works my P2SA&A: poems to sing again and again.
01/31:
Song To M
To the tune of Pictures of You, by The Cure
M, you are a name,
You are a quiet invitation,
Briefest braille for the blind
Start of a simple conversation,
Title on the cover page
Without any explanation,
For now, for the moment
Such a pleasant presentation
And I want to remember you:
I want to remember you
From the first scene of your story
Full of unexpected chapters,
Uncharted adventures,
Untold ever afters,
From the first note of the measure
Of music I don’t know
But want to hear more of,
La canto da capo,
You’re a language that’s new to me
From the beginning,
A song to repeat
For its gradual meaning,
And somewhere in the melody
I just want to learn you
And find in you more than
A tune that I turn to.
I want to remember you:
I want to remember you.
From the first word,
I want to memorize you,
Learn every line of you,
Look into your eyes
And discover you. M,
You are a name so far,
But I’ve only started
To see who you are
And I want to see more,
I want to speak you and sing you
And know you by heart,
You and everything in you.
Somewhere in this fantasy
We’ll sing our songs together
And hope that the harmony
Plays on forever,
And if you’ll indulge me
I promise you this,
I’ll keep every secret
And hold every kiss
Between us, and even if
Things never change
And we remain strangers
I’ll always remember your name.
I want to remember you.
I want to see that you’re more than name.
I want to remember you.
I want to know you,
know that you're more than a name.
Just say the word, and
I’ll stay here as long
As you can keep on singing
And there is a song
Between us, and even if
Things start to change
And we become strangers
You’ll always be more than a name.
02/01:
Liner Notes To A Starry Night
Vincent Van Gogh’s most famous Starry Night painting shows a wild sky with swirling, pyrotechnic stars that cast a blue-gray glow on the town below it. It must be late at night, as there are no house lights and no people. This is the Starry, Starry Night of Don McLean’s song Vincent, reflecting how the artist “suffered for [his] sanity.”
It is a powerful moment, but I prefer Van Gogh’s earlier astral painting: Starry Night over the Rhone. The night is calmer, the stars are more balanced and the city is still awake with its own lights; a river flows across the canvas and there are exactly two people on the riverside, standing together and quietly inviting us to take it all in.
Years ago, when I was one of two people, we bought a copy of this painting for our living room. My other is no longer with me; she is somewhere else, suffering for her own sanity now, and my days with her are forever in the past, but I still like keeping that painting on my wall...
02/02:
Starry Night, Revisited
Co-opting the tune and refrain of Widow's Grove,
by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan
The sky above, the earth below;
The city stirs, the river flows.
We walk at night that we may see
The stars and know we’re not alone,
That we may breathe a different air
And stroll along a quiet shore,
Stand silent where the river laps
Up to our feet (wandering where
we were before).
I followed you to the river
That washes out to the sea;
Between city lights and stars at night,
That's where I'll be.
The earth is black, the sky is blue;
The river bends a mirrored view
Of the evening glow of lights familiar,
Heaven down and shore to shore.
We meet the night. We take the time
To be together, you and I,
Across the river and in between
The city and a giant sky.
I followed you to the river
That washes out to the sea;
Between city lights and stars at night,
That's where I'll be.
We feel the earth and we breathe the sky
And find our place beneath the stars,
Your arm in mine and mine in yours.
The world is right and the night is ours.
I followed you to the river
That washes out to the sea;
Between city lights and stars at night,
That's where I'll be.
Between city lights and stars at night,
That's where I'll be.
02/03:
Love Beyond Reason
from Walled Gardens
While reason is still tracking down the secret,
you end your quest on the open field of love.
– Sanai, tr. David Pendlebury, The Garden of Reality, 1976
Love is charity, and charity
is giving with nothing to gain.
Love is serenity, courage, wisdom,
the considerations of change.
Love is peace beyond understanding,
a song in the silence, a calm in the storm.
Love walks through the noisy street
and delights in being a part of it.
Love stands in an open field
and listens to the song.
02/04:
Moleskin 1.5: The Serenity Prayer
Serenity: now there's a prayer! A wish and a word: I might as well fly to the top of the world or trudge across vast deserts. I could just as easily become one with this big river. "Calm down," says the ferryman. Yeah, sure, easier said than done. If peace were as easy as pausing I would stop everything and let this water flow. To know serenity, santi, salaam, shalom, I should not trouble you, or myself, with these opening chapters or the easier pages of this story. Let me skip right to the faith and love and healing; let me sit down, close my eyes and surrender. A wish and a word, to accept the things around me just as they are, to not be afraid of the world I'm in, to find my perch a few miles out of town. A prayer, even before I confess my faith, before I know what to believe. Here, at the beginning of my story: serenity!
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