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Can it be a year since the Japanese tsunami, and the flowering of the Arab Spring? These, as well as horrors in other places, and Bill Evans' "Peace Piece" were on my mind all morning while this small poem came together. Yesterday it was warm for Michigan, in the 60s (15-20°C); beds got raked out, revealing crocuses in bloom. After a while, listening to the songs and calls of the birds, I could hear them say things I wanted to say. Which led to the Bill Evans song, because it also gives me calm beauty when I need it. And then the poem, which only seems to offer a bit of a framework for far more that wants to be said, and you know, sometimes only improvised songs can do it. You can read this back story about Bill Evans' intoxicating song "Peace Piece," recorded in 1958, including how he did not much like performing it upon request, as it was an inspiration of the moment, not something that could be recreated. Thankfully it was recorded, so it can be listened to, with peace rising like spring again and again.
Spring again
Woodpeckers nail octaves
to limbs
in another delicate scaffold of spring
while the mourning dove
coos a bass ostinato
out of
the bottom line,
ever below
the laughing glissando
of the Northern Flicker
and the
tinkling dee-dee-dee
of the chickadee;
note by ceremonial note
their steady spirit
tinkers with my hammering heart
to build even just one season
of peace, peace.
March 2012
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