(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
On Sunday mornings, I get up early to project lyric slides as instrumentalists and singers at St. Bart’s Anglican Church prepare for their service. My favorite Sundays are those rare ones when singers are accompanied only by the pianist Kevin Howard. While there are other exceptionally talented musicians, my old ears are happiest when I can clearly pick out Kevin’s playing. I don’t know how he does it, but his style opens doors to harmony—and I respond in worship. Today—during practice and in the service itself— this all struck me as a picture of Creation responding appropriately to God under the care of God’s vice-regent, man. Awake, and free to all do what we do best, and that harmoniously—it’s how we’re meant to be.
This poem is for Kevin, who opens the way to harmony.
NOTE: If you’re not accustomed to e. e. cummings’ odd syntax, you may find the last two stanzas especially difficult. So here’s a gloss: I couldn’t agree more with nature in its untrammeled and joyous response to a fine musician’s accompaniment.
About the “prisoned waters….” A fellow poet initially thought I might mean “poisoned waters.” I can’t blame him, since the word should actually be “imprisoned” or “imprisoning.” For what it’s worth, I was thinking about fish in aquariums, and wanted a quick way to suggest that when the musician plays, fish in a constraining environment find their own “open way” to swim free and thus be all the fish they’re meant to be.
________________
(background image by Unachicalinda on Pixabay)