Incident at the Lincoln Memorial

On Friday, January 19, 2019, there were many people involved in various protest or commemorative marches in the area of the Capital Mall of Washington, D.C., but an apparent confrontation developed between white students from a catholic school in Kentucky, black Hebrew Israelites who had participated in the March for Life and Native American activists, who had participated in the Indigenous Peoples March. Video of this intersection of groups has gone viral, and so many people have commented on it already. I nevertheless also feel compelled to respond.

I, as thousands have, viewed at the original clip (taken by one of the Native American marchers), and the longer video (apparently taken by one of the Hebrew Israelites). This is what I heard and saw, as succinctly as I can put it: One group with a religious affiliation was hurling negative value judgments and pejoratives at a crowd that included mostly white students and Native Americans. The students, for some reason that is not clear, stormed up to the group of Native Americans, invading their personal space and engaged in a staring match. I perceived a clear sense of menace and threat in the actions on either side; the Native Americans were between the Hebrew Israelites and the students. Unrighteous judgment was all around in the video footage. I certainly did not see the best example of nonviolent resistance in this charged atmosphere. Disrespectful behavior was evident.

Then, one of the Native Americans, Nathan Phillips, started to beat his drum and chant. I perceived this to be an attempt to diffuse and de-escalate a challenging situation.

How did I come to make that call? I am a minister in that way; I chant and I sing.  The beauty of the human voice offered in song is one of the greatest healing tools we have readily available to us. The gift that music keeps on giving the world is the creation of innumerable opportunities for unity to occur among people. 

Few are aware of an aspect called “entrainment” or that there is a study called “bio-musicology” that studies this aspect, which is simply defined as a synchronization of organisms by means of rhythmic music. When folks go into a theatre to hear a concert, and they all come out feeling moved or happy in the same way, humming tunes that they heard or singing, that is a simple example of entrainment.

When he started the drumming and chanting, Nathan Phillips was attempting to clear the space and call on the Great Spirit to enter into the discussion. I didn't know what he was chanting, but I knew this was his intent. It is the same thing people do in temples, synagogues and churches, around campfires, in sacred places everywhere - chants, hymns, whatever you want to call them, it is all the same--unifying people around the vibrational energy we all share. My sense of this was affirmed by a woman who commented on the thread of a Facebook friend about this incident. She lives in a community of Native Americans, and she indicated that she knew this was a prayers song.

Perhaps I should add that music first shifts people from where they are to another place or attitude, one where they are potentially prepared for entrainment. Singing/chanting activates both hemispheres of the brain of the singer; the opportunity for a different type of participation and awareness possible from all who are in the vicinity, whether they are singing or not. I've read on this in the past, but I'm not sure I could lay my hands on a definitive article. I do know that music therapy makes use of entrainment to assist in healing of all kinds, and I am sure the Buddhists discuss this from the aspect of meditation, as well as chanting. The ringing of any bell, for example, is the signal to awaken from one way of thinking to another. Do we heed the bell? Do we heed the song? Do we heed the call to change? That is always the question.

The human voice is the body's primary built-in coping tool. We cry out in the darkness so as not to feel alone. Our voices reach out to find others. Rarely do you find children that do not make up songs or hum to themselves when they are alone, quietly playing. This vibration that we generate is a precious tool for our whole lives. Unfortunately, great swathes of our society have been told they can't sing, music programs in schools have been limited or eliminated, and there is so much generated music, the majority of people passively listen and don't participate as much in singing as they used to. If people are listening to music, it is more often through earphones, rather than a shared public occasion. 

Instead of singing, people talk, gabble, gabble, gabble all the time. Much of this gabbling talk is generated by the judgmental portion of the brain; there is a lot of bad vibe being pushed out there, damaging to self and others. This is unfettered left-brain activity. 

Unfortunately, as a society, we do not teach our children that they need to tend carefully the garden of their minds. Without structure, censorship or discipline, our thoughts run rampant on automatic. Because we have not learned how to more carefully manage what goes on inside our brains, we remain vulnerable to not only what other people think about us, but also to advertising and/or political manipulation.

- Jill Bolte Taylor, “My Stroke of Insight” (2008)

Dr. Taylor’s statement rather aptly describes the situation in front of the Lincoln Memorial, and it’s media fallout.

I write about this today because right now the earth is calling us to change. The earth cannot ring a bell. It can only sing a song of sorrow from the depths of the sea and the wind whipped mountaintops. The whole earth is a sacred place and we are supposed to be stewards of it; but instead we are mostly engaged in trying to conquer one another. One woman wrote, in the same Facebook thread on this incident I earlier mentioned, that the need for people to be right at all costs is both exhausting and crippling us. People yell at each other and fling blame. With all the yelling going on, it is no surprise that we can’t hear anything else. Further, seeking to be right is the chasing of a false idol. Righteousness is not something that can be claimed or owned by anyone; it is a honorific bestowed on someone who does good. 

Martin Luther King, Jr. talked about radical love; this type of love is discussed in many holy books, in many traditions around the world. That is what today should be about. In the incident on Friday, Nathan Philips tried to open a door away from a difficult situation by chanting a prayer for healing and unity. (I am trying to find out more about his chant, and if I do, I’ll update this article with that information.) Love is what must overcome the negativity in our world and be the unifying element of our lives. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said in a sermon:

Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. So when Jesus says ‘Love your enemies,’ he is setting forth a profound and ultimately inescapable admonition. Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies– or else? The chain reaction of evil–hate begetting hate, wars producing wars–must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.”

- Martin Luther King, Jr.,“Strength to Love” (1963)

I’ll end with a somewhat more cryptic way of looking at it for you all to ponder on as you do service today. This is about unison in music.

Equality is never found in the consonances or intervals, and unison is to the musician what the point is the geometer. A point is the beginning of a line, although it is not itself a line. A line is not composed of points, since a point has no length, width or depth that can be extended or joined to another point. So a unison is only the beginning of a consonance or interval; it is neither consonance nor interval, for like the point, it is incapable of extension.

- Gioseffo Zarlino (1517-1590), singer, composer and music theorist

earth and air, water and light

—on the trail,
engaged in a counterpoint of breathing
over an ostinato of stepped footfalls,
meeting a rising and falling landscape—

ferns reach out to stroke ankles and shins,
as if to say,
too long, too long have you been away—

even the rising dust from these stamping feet
joins an alleluia chorus of motes,
dancing,
suspended in shafts of light,
trained and focused by the benevolent branches
of these sentinel redwoods
that guide this way;
it is a music of welcome,
quiet but potent—

sorrel and trillium,
their delicate blossoms content just to be;
even violet and columbine
speak a language of color and moment;
wild ginger carpets each moist patch below,
visually cooling the warmth of this day—

and ahead are the rocks,
tumbled there from time immemorial—

and imperceptibly the trail rises,
drawing nearer to a water music,
heard from over the next ridge—

mingled medicinal aromas
of coyote mint and yerba buena
drift from somewhere below,
or from over yet another ridge,
one that seems a world away—

an awareness overtakes,
of height having been achieved,
these feet drawn over pathways
traced earliest by small creatures,
then by migrations of deer,
and followed by others for millennia,
only to be discovered again, today—

then comes a sudden touch;
water reaches out whenever
riparian proximity is achieved
—playfully errant spray
tickles and teases the flesh
with its coolness—

rushing up from the depth and darkness
of its rock-hewn source to meet the light,
water rushes all a-tumble,
falling all over itself in joyous freedom,
to flow and drift into the meditative rest
of pools below blue-hued skies,
spiegel im spiegel,
there to be serenaded by what congress of birds
is berthed in the surrounding canopy—

too long, too long you have been away,chants the feathered choir
in their various languages,
but you are here with us now,
reply earth and air, water and light,
the only truth worth knowing—

but you are here with us now,
alleluia!

© 2018 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Clinamen (Swerve)

Straight lines bend,
like the supple willow branch;
even light can bend around a corner
and the voice in song
can, in the right conditions,
pierce the equanimity of the soul.

A passing thought might lead to an idea,
or it might land to resting point,
or even dissipate
into a cloud,
perhaps to reappear
—  though maybe not —
or reform in re-emergences
symbiotic with certain concurrent vibrations.

Being arises,
blossoming forth
from omnipresence
in unique expressions
based on exposure with
any surrounding elements;
attraction to certain resonances
or even repulsions,
conversions and distractions
divert every linear trajectory.

Continuity,
shaped by chance encounters
along the omnizon
with any resonant factor,
might follow a path
or diverge.

Differentiation
need not be disorienting;
every voice finds a place in the choir,
and while yet singular,
can by agreement
coalesce harmoniously
in a timely flow of momentarily
cascading resonances
punctuated by titillating,
even thought provoking, dissonance.

Each and every pathway leads,
whether blazed or followed,
divined or diverted,
elemental in its own way;
the traveler experiences
a full and varied range of
compliance or resistance,
from and with, betwixt and between,
toward eventual results that,
on one hand,
resolve to known
quantities, weights, measures
and tonalities,
though on the other,
fruitions that may never
accumulate or articulate in such a way
as to be seen, heard, felt or fully known
in the open-work of space and time. 

© 2018 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

This is somewhat in memory of Dixon Adams ("Uncle Dodds"), that late, great book pusher, who would be tickled to know that I have found myself on a pathway through western classics, his specialty. A Lucretian/Epicurian martini of thought, blended with a whiff of Antonio Negri and Gilles Deleuze... 

Blue Moon Blood Moon Eclipse

Wearing a shadow for a covering,
in the coolness of a morning that is not—
for night and day are but a seeming,
guiding that rarest of miracles: vision

—Over this silent music presides the moon,
calling all divine light to rise and water to lie,
and quickening every frozen seed to song
from all measures of waiting slumber.

Such mathematical and unseasonal observances,
of celestial bodies hurtling forward through space,
should swerve and realign misguided churnings
that might trouble a perfect harmonic turn.

In this here and now, wearing a shadow for a covering,
water lies in hushed witness to what eternal moment,
seemingly, is reflected on this still and tensile Bay,

unaware of any unseemly ripple over the fabric of time.

© 2018 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

With A Song in the Heart

Ubi—
            the glare of,
                        —caritas—
            yes, the sun’s benevolent glare
                                    —et amor—
            on her wedding day

birds singing in the trees;
musicians playing and singing;
a song arose in her own heart.

—congregavit nos in unum—
            “we are gathered together”
—simul ergo cum in unum congregemus—
            “as gathered into one body”

behind the glare of the sun
stood an angel aglow with fire,
bearing circlets of rose and lily.

—ne nos mente dividamur—
            “let those who are now joined”
                        —caveamus—
            “not be sundered”

the husband and his brother
deigned to the swim she offered,
according to the song of her heart.

—Exultemus—
            let us Rejoice!
                        for the vision seen
                        for the life given
                        for the love shared

—cantantibus organis—
            for while the music played
            the glare of the sun
            tore open the sky
            broke open her heart
            and the stars flocked like birds
            through its torn veil
            bringing their heavenly songs
            to every open place.

—dum aurora finem daret—
            at the last stroke,
            into the open earth
            her heart sang out,
            pure to the last
—fiat cor meum immaculatum—

—non confundar
            alleluia
            alleluia
—Deus ibi est

            alleluia
            alleluia

© 2017 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

//

Cecilia (patron saint of musicians and poets and venerated in the Roman canon of the mass) is a most unlikely saint from Roman times. No particular miracles are attributed to her, although she was able to convince two men (her new husband and his brother) that she knew an angel; she was martyred because she was a Christian (though, according to legend, was apparently difficult to dispatch); and when her remains were uncovered centuries later, they were incorrupt, to the astonishment of those who discovered them. There are a few quotes attributed to her that are probably derivative of psalms, and not much else is known.

But mythmaking, I believe, always has a basis in truth; there was a person so special that her memory could not be erased from her community, even generations following her death. The basis of truth about Cecilia is perhaps that she sang, and she wanted her song to be for Jesus, for God. Oddly, the root of the name implies blindness; this person’s perception was evidently triggered and opened by music to experience the divine.

That is most likely the miracle.

I have folded words from the hymn “Ubi Caritas,” as well as some the words attributed to Cecilia into this meditation (apologies for any over-simplifications of the Latin on my part):

Ubi caritas et amor – where benevolence and love are

Congregavit nos in unum – we are gathered into one

Simul ergo cum in unum congregemus – as we are gathered into one body
Ne nos mente dividamur, caveamus – beware, lest we be of divided mind

Exultemus – Rejoice

Cantantibus organis – instruments played
Dum aurora finem daret – while dawn was breaking into day

Fiat cor meum immaculatum – let my heart stay pure

Non confundar – not be confounded
Deus ibi est – God is there

Waking beneath swirling stars

Waking beneath swirling stars
into this kaleidoscopic array,
where colors, light and shadows play
through loud or unexpectedly quiet hours,
grateful for: fruit of the vine,
waiting to be crafted into wine;
all the prayerful, fragrant flowers
snug ‘neath warm and sunny ray;
the themes with variations
of being and doing, each day
a new start at the foundations;
the play of You at my horizon,
which is really the Play of Us,
hum-sung to grow and wisen
all toward easiness within, without fuss;
the freedom to know and accept love;
the curiosity to seek and explore,
both below the surface and above,
what can be known of music and rhythms,
in their proper expansions and contractions,
mind and heart exercising all possible lyricisms
beyond the care of doubting reactions;
borrowed place and renewing rest;
for the weight of others’ cares;
for communal work and quest;
for those willing hands, hearts, arms and chairs
offered in my own hours of need;
and more,
            and more,
                        and, oh, so much more;
take this as a pledge to sow and seed and cede
beauties where most appropriate, never forsaking.

© 2017 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meetings – A Remembrance of Dawn Foster-Dodson

I wrote the poem you will read below for Dawn in 2002 and revised it in 2004; who knows, perhaps it is not truly finished. This poem is actually about Dawn and her relationships with her cello and with one piece of music, Max Bruch’s Op. 47, Kol Nidre. But really, it is about the will and freedom of the spirit to express beauty.

I had the honor and joy to hear Dawn play Bruch’s Kol Nidre each year on Erev Kol Nidre from 1997 to 2015 at Temple Isaiah in Lafayette, most of those years in collaboration with organist Michael Secour.

Over those years, Dawn’s relationship with this piece and with her cello, as well as her ensemble with Michael, deepened and expanded. I was amazed to experience her cello’s voice growing in depth and expression, Dawn’s touch of the bow on the strings becoming so second nature into meditation – the experience of hearing her became more and more translucent, if that at all makes sense. The sadness of the melody really was an uplifted prayer, less sad than a balm of love, poured out for all in the sanctuary, and beyond the beautiful stained glass windows of the synagogue, released into the world.

In the early years, Dawn used sheet music. Over the years, I could see that piece of sheet music was well-loved; it became dog-eared and worn on the edges from use. One year, she came to services without the music. Of course, she didn’t need it anymore. She hadn’t needed it for years and years. The music stand and the music copy had long become superfluous – she always closed her eyes and just played. She had transcended that barrier.

Every year, Dawn and Michael would play that piece for an assembled congregation of at least a thousand or more, over the course of two evening services. And every year, she drew the congregation away from their cares, concerns, fidgeting, drew them into their prayers with her music. You could hear a pin drop, it was so quiet, as if the congregation was holding an uncharacteristic but necessary border of silence around Dawn and her cello, Michael and the organ, to protect the precious fragility of the beauty being recreated for them.

And every year, at the last note, a collective sigh of thanksgiving for that translucent, shimmering beauty sent all those prayers aloft to Adonai. Every year. When her illness kept her from us last year, another kind of sigh was heard. And this year, a different one yet shall be heard.

Dawn, Dear One, with tears, my soul sings the shimmering, translucence of your transcendence, as a prayer of thanksgiving for the beauty of your life among us.

Meetings

Paper worn,
sheets so old
there's no rustle left in them,
more like felt under her fingers,
or softer yet,
like the worn cheek
of a beloved old friend.

Settling the pages,
making them comfortable,
she arranged herself,
just close enough
to see the signs and symbols,
and on them meditate.

Cradling the instrument
within her warm embrace,
she took a long, deep breath,
filling her being with its sweetness.

Fixing her gaze
on those worn pages—
old friends, revisited often;
“the rules of engagement,”
she had once heard;
an apt description,
the thought occurred
—she drew the bow,
forward over the strings.

Then she leaned back,
closed her eyes,
and let the bow find the strings,
the way that they would do,
just now.

Inner ear to mind,
mind to thought,
idea to quill,
quill to manuscript,
symbols dot paper,
shapes greet the eye,
horsehair strokes steel,
steel vibrates wood,
wood sings,
space hums,
body rejoices,
soul soars.

The sum
of all these meetings
is God’s voice,
heard as music.

© 2017 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Streaming II

Arising out of silence,
as phrases and phases
growing into movements,
into themes with variations,
that stream into being,
we flow on endless waves
of sound and movement.

If, at any point,
we this streaming is music,
we know that it flows through us,
like our breath and blood,
calling us to be consciously
joined to everything.

Music is our regulator,
our mentor and comforter,
at rest and in motion,
in silence and in sound,
in sickness and health,
flowing from silence
like water from its source;
Music must be our start and finish,
or so I pray
            as memory
            cannot serve me
            on this point.

Music has always been,
and will continue beyond us,
billowing and growing,
and growing beyond growth,
or, at least, beyond—
what growing is,
we may never truly know;
for while human experience
            is bound up in form,
music is outbound:
            form without boundaries.

Music, indeed our regulator,
mentor and comforter,
our rest and motion,
all silence and sound,
sickness and health,
(experience),
flowing from silence
like water from its source,
our start and finish.

Though God must be this Music
—the constant stream, flowing
through all portals of expansion—
You and I make a bridge called Now,
where the past is re-membered,
informing all future possibility.

Regulator,
mentor, comforter,
rest and motion, ocean;
silence and sound, found;
sickness and health, wealth;’
we are flowing from silence
like water from its source—
from were we start to ever onward,
together, we are Music,
in time and out.

© 2013 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Voir Dire: The Vocal Fry Phenomenon and the Future of Public Speaking

I am currently paneled for a jury trial in criminal court. A number of folks have been released on cause, and the voir dire process will continue on Monday. I might get kicked off the panel, but who knows. Unfortunately, I am the kind of person people of all stripes and scruples want on a jury… But, this can only be good for the justice system.

If you have never been part of a jury selection process, I can tell you that it is one of the most interesting vehicles for people watching. For a vocalist, it is also an interesting venue for people hearing.

I do not now teach, but have in the past been a vocal technique coach for singers, actors and speakers. One of the current topics that is “trending”, if you will, through the conversations of among voice teachers has to do with the current phenomenon, found primarily among young millennial women, called “vocal fry.” As the name indicates, there is a sizzle that characterizes the sound of the spoken voice. This sizzle produces a very unattractive sound, as well as an unhealthy habit in vocal production. By unhealthy, of course I mean vocal production that is destructive to the health of the vocal cords of the individual.

It has been suggested that this speech pattern exists mainly among young women. I had ample opportunity to hear for myself, from among those in the jury room. Here are my primary observations:

·       Of the men, representing a spectrum of ages from roughly 25 to 70, none at all spoke with vocal fry. Many men of different ethnicities men had very melodic sounding voices, but even the most flat sounding voices (mostly from Caucasian males) did not have a sizzle.

·       There has been a respiratory cough going around, and it was apparent that a few people were recovering from such.

·       Among the women, those most likely to have a sizzle to their sound were women 65 and older or 35 and younger.

·       The one young woman who did not speak with vocal fry was a trained actress.

·       Olfactory evidence of cigarette smoke (I am sometimes burdened by my strong sense of smell…) played a role in the vocal production of some of the men and women in the courtroom.

These observations led me to the immediate conclusion that “fry” is due primarily to a lack of vocal support. This might stand to reason among some older women, but cannot be considered as a pat answer; young women are cultivating this sound, are hearing and imitating that vocal production. What can this mean?

My further observations drew me to make the following general observations. (I would be interested in any feedback on these observations.)

·       Many women do not speak with as much diaphragmatic support as men do.

·       Most of the women speaking with vocal fry were heavily engaged with their handheld technology, when outside the courtroom (where all were asked to turn off and stow the gizmos).

·       Most of the women speaking with vocal fry were professional women with post-graduate degrees; some said they currently supervise others in their workplaces.

·       I could tell that most of the women speaking with vocal fry were forcing their voices to be pitched lower is natural to their voice.

I will now proceed to brainstorm on what I observed.

We live in a society that does not value the spoken word, as once and time immemorial. I make this brazen assertion because, as the parent of school aged children, I know for a fact there is not enough public speaking required of our youth and that it is not actively taught, unless the youth are involved in drama and singing at school. Of course, every school is different, but I believe this to be true of many public and private schools. Because we are being taught to be more technically engaged and distracted consumers of devices that entertain us, we are less likely to entertain one another, even with the expedient in “face-time” of the gentle art of conversation. I go into coffee shops everyday, where groups of people are huddled, but not conversing with each other. People are more likely to email or text one another than to speak in person or on the phone. Tone and inflection are, it seems, modes confrontational, rather than illuminating and inspiring.

When I hear “vocal fry” from women, I wonder why it is cultivated. There is a sort of jaded sound to it. Is this meant to convey experience or competence? Often, when used, it seems to convey “attitude” or “entitlement”. Conversely, (particularly Caucasian) men flatten quite a bit of nuance from their speech pattern. Here is a leap: Could women be cultivating this sound due to the stresses of competition in a male dominated workplace? Could it be that women think this sound lends “authority” to what they say? Could men be flattening their tone in order to be perceived as less authoritarian?

I certainly hope not. I find the fried sound from women fatiguing and outright annoying, particularly when hearing it in voice after voice after voice… I find the flat tone from men uninspiring, if not outright boring.

As for the future of public speaking, this is what I think, for what it is worth. While there are many celebrities, pundits, sales people, actors, motivational speakers, advocates and politicians who get into our consciousness with vivid speech, there are too few examples of average people, in our everyday interactions, who can and do speak fluidly, articulately and with a full range of inflection and emotion, when the situation calls for it. (I realize that a steady diet of that could be overwhelming.) The normative seems to lean toward men of few words, and women who sound jaded or exhausted. People who are bilingual can perhaps resonate with this: We are losing the music of spoken English because we are not exercising it, for some reason or perhaps for various reasons.

It is a mistake to take public speaking (known formerly as oration) out of our education, just as it is a mistake to take handwriting out of our education. Each of these skills is extremely important toward exercising our creative capacities, as many studies have shown. Reliance on technology to be our primary medium of communication means that we are, bit by bit, byte by byte, losing our ability to communicate clearly, effectively and expressively.

I predict that those few who do manage to learn to be expressive, in their written and vocal communications, will by necessity become a first generation of modern scribes. Trained singers and actors will continue to serve that function, existing throughout history, variously known as bard, troubadour, fool, and prophet.  

Meanwhile, ladies, let’s lose the fry… It is an affectation most unbecoming. Gentlemen, don’t be afraid to bring color and inflection to your voice… If you need help to cultivate the natural potential of your voice, there are professionals, like me, who can help you with that. Impressions are made not appearance alone, but on how you sound, as well.

Your voice is your music—a music you carry with you, wherever you go!!! The human voice is a beautiful and expressive instrument, people!

Voir dire literally means “speak the truth,”  and cannot go unsaid that your voice is your unique vehicle for speaking truth to power. Please, exercise your instrument, take care of it and, most of all, use it well, in speech and in song! Don’t abuse it; use it, authentically and expressively.

Meditations in Fast Times: 22. We are born of time

Note to Readers: “Meditations in Fast Times” is a devotional writing experiment for the Season of Lent. Each day during the season, I am writing a poem as a meditation on, taking as my inspiration and intertextual basis, T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets”, as well as incorporating the daily office, current events, and other readings—some the same as those Eliot used while composing his seminal work and others.

                22.

We are born of time;
surely it is time
that makes the river of life.
This river of unstable water,
drop upon lively drop,
carries our substance
from one and another adventure,
then on to each newer start.

We are woven of time;
surely it is time
that writes the book of life.
Life is written in
the language of experience;
death translates our essence,
by a more complex language,
into the stardust of creation.

We are the Music of Time;
surely it is Time
who writes us into songs
that dance with rejoicing waters,
drawn from saving springs!
The Book is full of our songs,
therefore, sing! Sing, for you are
the undying music of the Music-Maker.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen