Still Singing

Two years ago I wrote about a poem from my Poet's Passage that was a challenge to myself: "I Still Have Songs to Sing." I have continued to sing, and now resume a project that is more challenging yet, but perhaps possessing some potential to create and bring something new into the world. Actually as I am writing this, I am listening to Lost Works, a short tone poem that was part of a series. As I listen to it, I find it totally new... hearing things I didn't know were there. When one visits the website of Poet's Passage, it plays automatically.

Time has passed, and I am a different poet now. I read the words of the past and listen to past inventions with a new ear. Time has dissolved my ties to past works. I hold no secrets to their emergence. I listen to Lost Works and wonder why I didn't do more works like this. The orchestration of new instruments is rich, and the textures are sometimes profound. I listen with wonder. "Did I do that..." I ask myself, words falling silent in an empty room.

In the emptiness of this chamber, I hear new sounds... my fingers wander over the keys as though guided by some inner force. I recognize some fragments, but they grow in different directions than the past, they find new pathways and diversions.

I realize I never knew who I was or even now who I am. I stand outside myself hearing the collective sounds that now define my identity, realizing that the filter of my mind transforms them into some mysterious substance of myself. Then I understand that we share this filtering. Each of us filters infinite possibilities into discrete realities that define us and define each other.

My voice is different now and yet the same. I am still searching and stumbling across neglected terrain and finding new miracles. But I am confronted by the hastening of Time. I see the constellations of my existence racing away from each other faster than the speed of light. I am confronted by sense of loss of the past and the lost presence of those who were fellow explorers who supported and inspired me. They have gone on to other feasts, and I still stumble in the accelerated debris rendezvousing at destinations yet unknown.

Too much distracted, I must remember to sing.