Whether shaped into songs or poems in ballad form, syllables that lift up the heart, carry meaning, and that chime in the ear predate writing. Their portable music makes them easy to memorize, meaning they are always available. (Sometimes, perhaps, too, easy to memorize! Perhaps the phenomenon of the “ear worm”–that line of lyric or cant you would delete if only you could–will be a subject of some future post!) The lyric is the spirit of whistling while you work, of looking on the bright side, of seeing what is flowing unimpeded in a fruitful direction. Think of rosebuds and morning dew and mellow sunsets and silver moons, all the colors of the rainbow.
Context for Poem “Invocation to Erato”:
In September of 1860, on the eve of the American Civil War, two astronomers in Berlin discovered the asteroid we now know as Erato. Wars, especially civil divisions, are grim, frightening, and intermitently tragic. They interfere with the ability to relax, laugh, soak in the beauty of the mercurial yet eternal pleasures of the natural world. Erato’s work is play, so remind us of the light and love all around. And I think that her mission is the most urgent in times of turbulent unrest.
Once upon a time, in Minneapolis, back when Tim and I lived in a rented duplex on Penn (pen!) Avenue, I found tucked behind the furnace in the basement, the base of a library table without a top, with two lyre shapes supporting…only air. I felt a strong need to rescue it. The landlord had just bought the old property–he had no interested in the flotsam of half-gone furniture and said it was all mine. I purchased some blue and white tiles and arranged for a handyman to fashion a top.
Today, and for the foreseeable future, we don’t have a good space for this piece in our tiny library, so this table holds sway in our current basement near our brand-new furnace. Usually it is heaped high with the jumbled colors of quilt fabrics. I think it is a kind of engine of creativity fueling our home. Here you see it as a momentary tabula rasa, lighting our subterranean gloom.
Until tomorrow,
LESLIE
