You are the music while the music lasts,
If it can flow through your body
If you let it surge out of your mouth and fingertips
Then allow it to explode from your soul
Or coax it to whisper from your lips
The music will dance for you like a charmed snake
Caress the ears and minds of your audience
And open the eyes of their hearts.
For music is emotion put into sound,
Inducing tears and laughter, smiles and sympathy
And you know, no matter how you sing,
Even if you hit a few sour notes,
It only matters that you feel the music.
So long a as you feel it, enjoy it, let it overcome you
The music will make itself great.
And after you fall from the trance, back into the real world,
After the last notes and chords leave your instrument,
If your audience silently pauses before suddenly exploding in applause and cheers,
You know you have done well.
Just let it fill your bones.
9.23.13
The title is a quote by T.S. Eliot that I used for a journal assignment for choir. Writing the poem was my own idea in lieu of a journal, and my teacher liked it so much she asked for a copy and for me to read it to the whole choir *eep* fortunately they liked it too ^_^