BLOG #3: SYMBOLISM – PART 1 – SYMBOLISM COMBINED WITH ALLUSIONS
01/08/2021THEMED POEMS: THE MANY FORMS OF LOSS
01/10/2022Carl Crossin and the Adelaide Chamber Singers have been thrilling me with their music for many, many years. Occasionally, I am moved to write something during the concert, or shortly after. The eponymous, ‘Flight,’ is the product of their concert on 20 November, 2021 It was a night where the sound soared and swirled around us and I was moved to write the first draft of a poem, as they were singing. It is impossible to capture in mere words the experience of those voices as they transported us to other times and places and, at the same time, obliterated time and place and just flew straight into our hearts and souls and spoke the beauty and truth we all needed to hear in the midst of a pandemic. I hope you enjoy the poem so much you buy a ticket to their next concert. You won’t regret it.
Flight
ACS Concert 20 November, 2021
My eyes close, blocking out
the physical presence of
the concrete world,
allowing the notes to flow
through my body unimpeded,
as if written on a single stave
that funnels its multi-layered
music from my feet,
up through the ancient
songlines of sound, to my heart.
Soundlessly, my harried heart
exhales its unconscious
burden of sustaining life
in the shadow of death,
slipping now into a new rhythm
as it breathes in sublime beauty.
The notes swirl their divine
oracles through my brain
which bows in glad obeisance
to the mysteries of salvific sound.
Notes rise through the broken body
in the deep shadows of the
evening altar and heal our
wounded hurting hearts.
At this concert on the cusp of Christmas,
we are reminded that we gave you
gold, frankincense and myrrh . . .
but you gave us the sea, and the sky.
This world. And the world of our imaginations.
And music. The uncontainable miracle of music.
Incomparable gifts, vast and majestic.
We celebrate you tonight in every gifted note
that rings with the truth of your goodness
and the prodigal generosity of your heart.
And each soul takes flight
in search of the inexpressible light,
transforming this dark November night.