A Little Life Music

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Music gives a soul to he universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.” - Plato

Music acts like a magic key. To which the most tightly closed hearts open.” – Maria von Trapp

“The only thing better than singing is more singing.” – Ella Fitzgerald

Now, why you may well ask, am I writing up a poem-post about the joy of music when I can’t play an instrument, sing a note and have lived with a significant degree of deafness all my life? 

Good question, that. The short answer is that am always listening to favourite music and songs playing in my head; especially when I am feeling sad, lonely or scared enough for self-pity to take me to the very edge of The Abyss. Music reminds me why I shouldn’t jump. Oh, I’ve been pushed many a time, and fallen. But, who hasn’t, by giant shadows that mean us ill?  

Yet, even while falling, I’d hear sounds of music in my head returning me to terra-firma, if only to start living, learning and listening all over again…

A LITTLE LIFE MUSIC

My cap hides less hair than it did,
as well as mixed feelings, running riot
from time to time
when not invoking a passion for any music,
poetry or rhyme sure to give
savage breast and unquiet mind a welcome rest
from trying to reason after-shocks
of pleasure-pain imposed by its own and the world’s
least concealed flaws

Music, may well be the food of love,
left to play on even in the face of rejection,
human nature least inclined
to see a willow for its branches, falling
like tears for times hearts
all but broken by attributing such meaning
to feelings within as first
lit its fires, fanned its flames, only to have it all but die
without understanding why 

Mind-body-spirit thrives to the sound
of music, no matter how its life forces presented,
by humankind or Earth Mother,
amateur or professional, a confessional
of sorts where heart-and soul
may well fear to go, dreading what it may uncover
in such recesses as it may yet nurture,
while struggling to keep all but hidden even from itself;
mixed feelings on a lonely shelf

Yet, even the saddest heart-and-soul can
learn to sing again, to a little life music composed
in kinder times by friendly ghosts,
now lending it huff and puff enough to revive
half-forgotten dreams,
leading us, in turn, to doors closed to us far too long,
pleading we fling them open, let music
back in, in time to see the willow weep such tears of light,
as no darkness can ever snuff out

Though insight deflected by brilliant sunshine or heavy rain,
trust a little life music to see its way clear again…

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2022