Slow is her progress and high is her climb,
It's measured in arcs that trace my night sky.
I spoke and she answered, but only in rhyme,
Across space and time, the poetess and I.
In my dream we met, and she told me she'd written,
Something dear to her kind heart- a poetic creation.
For Sara herself, I was utterly smitten,
And I urged her to share it, with awkward elation.
I rambled then, foolish, and shy to be near,
Since her words had already reached me before.
In a future that’s past yet, paradoxically, here,
And knowing, not knowing, just what was in store.
“There's a poem that you wrote...”, I had started to say,
“In the Bradbury story, I think that's the one”,
“There's an automated house that's going through it's day...”,
“It recites your piece aloud...? but the people have all gone...?”
“ ‘There will come soft rains’,dear friend”, her reply,
And her smile said, “thank you. I'm glad you recall”,
“But this one is shorter”, and her voice was a sigh,
“It’s a different theme, but encompasses all”.
Then, as you'd expect, in the midst of a dreaming,
She opened her notebook and the next thing I knew,
Four lines of writing appeared, only seeming,
To arrange themselves magical, universal and true.
——————————————————
"Moon's Ending" by Sara Teasdale
Moon, worn thin to the width of a quill,
In the dawn clouds flying,
How good to go, light into light, and still
Giving light, dying.
——————————————————
Every step of our lives, we are walking the line,
Fail or succeed, illuminated in the trying,
The moon is just as bright when she's on the decline,
Our light, consolation to the living or dying.
Thank you, poets. You gave everything that you could,
When you’d make something holy from the simplest spark.
Thank you, friend, for understanding. I had hoped that you would.
Thank you, Sara, for writing the light and the dark.
https://soundcloud.com/flowermouth/moons-ending-with-wes-parham
This is for another collaboration with a composer in the Netherlands, Dennis Ramler. He wrote a composition inspired by a poem that he loves called "Moon's Ending" by Sara Teasdale and asked if I could write something to mix in. This is what I came up with. I'll post a soundcloud link once Dennis has mixed and mastered his track. The idea was a dream-memory in which the speaker meets Sara just as she has written "Moon's Ending" and entreats her to share it. They ramble awkwardly about another poem of hers that was used in a short story by Ray Bradbury. The poem is followed by, basically, a paraphrasing of how I interpret "Moon's Ending" and the final stanza is gratitude for poetry, poets, friendship, understanding, and for Sara who wrote so lyrically about beauty, love, life, and death, each in equal measure of respect and gratitude.