Opening the Envelope of the World
When it is dark, we return
to our young streets; birds
sleep in the branches
of our years; we follow
the road past our house;
the light is on; a dog
sleeps on the porch;
music plays inside us;
we pursue it across
summer and the the long
winter. The road is
there for us to follow,
and the light on
for us to remember.
of the escape through air, sun, cloud . . .
on toward the "lost island" and the "prairie sea"
I hear in my mind that tender tune sung by Peter, Paul, and Mary
(listen here, complete with Monet slideshow):
Somos el barco, somos el mar,
Yo navego en ti, tu navegas en mi
We are the boat, we are the sea,
I sail in you, you sail in me
The stream sings it to the river,
the river sings it to the sea
The sea sings it to the boat
that carries you and me
Chorus
The boat we are sailing in
was built by many hands
And the sea we are sailing on,
it touches every land
Chorus
So with our hopes we set the sails
And face the winds once more
And with our hearts we chart the waters
never sailed before
Somos el barco, somos el mar,
Yo navego en ti, tu navegas en mi
We are the boat, we are the sea,
I sail in you, you sail in me
Words & music by Lorre Wyatt
A Fable Bursts Free
We return to our house; the Indian
sleeps in his grandfather's cradle;
there is the cadence of rock
rolling over the long hill;
a dog barks beneath the willow.
We unravel into a skein of geese
weaving above the land's parabola
of shore. Without artifice, our words
come, legacies of the South and North,
a construct of our generation.
We escape through a portal of air,
a gate of the sun. We go without
hesitation through brazen clouds
forming seasons; we sail, once
and for all, toward
the lost island and the prairie sea.
"Opening the Envelope" & "Fable" by Alice Price, 1927 - 2009
from her book Our Dismembered Shadow
~ eating cake and reading manuscripts ~
at the Tulsa Center for Women's Studies, 1982
No comments:
Post a Comment