ambient song

“A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint
their pictures on silence.”―Leopold Stokowski
 
what, now, this arid land that i must rove,
where once sweet lyric streams from heav’n o'erflowed?
have not i dwelt in castles high above,
making ink-fertile skies my blest abode?
 
how, now, my parchment languishes for words
that once kept saturn and the milky way
as iridescent as the hummingbird’s
full-throated anthem at the break of day!
 
my memory of ambient song has left
my head; orphaned of vigilance and mirth
i, in fell silence, baffled by the theft
that has relieved me of my scribal worth.
 
then, shall i hang my harp upon the pine,
while inexplicit paeans choke me dead?
may God forbid earth’s oceans should decline,
or i lack ink to write, that men may read.
 
my spirit groans, so that my tears the dust
may conscript into service for my quill;
now let these things be written down―a trust
that all my words their mission may fulfill.
 
© Copyright 2024 January 02
by Clyve A. Bowen♫