Music

The London post . . .

Psalm 2
by Kenneth Durham Smith


The first thing created
was a mind, and she camped
in the middle of the darkness
and sang to the darkness 
of what was yet to come

She was the first Other
but she was not afraid,
possessed of patience
from before time,
full of all the songs
that would ever be written

She sings even now, here
in the light and the dark,
as she has ever sung, 
as she will ever sing

The Seattle riposte . . .

The Beautiful Singer
revised version of a poem from Persephone
by David Keith Johnson


She sings: Her song is lifted to the clouds
Light as a bird, and graceful as a wing,
And I am but one face in upturned crowds
That stare and lose their breath to wondering.

She sings: Her songs fall cool and crystalline,
Tumultuous and soft, like mountain rain
That polishes the rocks until they shine
With innocence the mountain snows explain.

She sings: Though I am surely not alone
Wishing her songs were meant for only me,
Some rapture in the listening has shown
Just what a privilege it is to be

One face among the upturned, breathless crowds
That with her songs are lifted to the clouds.