Soul Music I

That sweet soul music. . . .

Deciding on an appropriate post for today has been a challenge. It’s not that I haven’t been writing. I have. It’s just that, when the conditions of our world seem so dire, what with natural and manmade disaster, political division and turmoil dominating each news cycle, it often seems to me that what I choose to write about is very much beside the point.

In times of existential threat, is existential wonder out of place? It’s as if the question from the old hymn, “How can I keep from singing?” has been distorted into “How do I dare keep singing?” So it’s with some trepidation that I publish here the first part of a poem in three parts on the subject of the soul and its relation to music. It’s not meant as an escape from our current plight, only as a reminder that there’s something besides that may be worth devoting some attention to, just in case there’s more than the present and its problems that we should be concerned with.

Thanks for your patience and for bearing with me. Here’s Part One of three.

Clipart from midnightmusic.com

Soul Music I

What is soul if not vibration,
modulation, music? Notes,
scales, chords, struck and humming
through the brain, nerves, marrow, 
bones, tuned and tempered,
timed, synched with the heartbeat,
the choreography of hands and feet.