Be Careful What You Wish For

My neighbor drives me nuts.  

He plays his music at an outrageous volume; in winter I can hear it through closed windows and hefty snow banks.  In summer, he floods my yard with noise.  We have to speak loudly on our own deck to have a conversation.  

I cherish music, and wouldn't mind sharing his tastes, if I could hear anything but the bass. He must love bass; it overpowers the words, the melody, everything.  I can feel the thumps reverberating in my skull and down my spine.

But, he does have a beautiful yard, and it is a pleasure to walk by his gardens.

I complained to a friend about the pounding sound pollution and voiced the wish that he would move. She cautioned me to be careful what I wished for.  And she was correct.

The neighbor sold his home and there are new folks living in the noisy house with the gorgeous yard.  All is quiet now, feels peaceful, except for last week.  The new neighbor went out to his yard with some friends and together they began ripping at his trees with a hand saw and trimmers.

What a heartache to watch him cut down a saucer magnolia.  Does he know how challenging they are to grow in our climate zone?  Does he know how inspiring it is to see a twenty-foot tree full of pink and cream blossoms; blossoms shaped like cups and saucers pouring out spring?  

Of course, all of this is none of my business.  I know that.  A neighborhood is really a village of people who need to respect and tolerate each other, so I will, and I do.

Still, how can anyone cut down a tree so lovely?  I don't understand.

And, I must be more careful what I wish for.

Laura Smith, an Inspiration

 

 

Last evening, Laura Smith performed in a cabaret style setting at the Cocoa Room in Riverview, NB.  We were there, with friends, to listen to her concert of beloved favourites, plus songs from her first new album in sixteen years, Everything is Moving.

Laura Smith has magic in her voice.  And a gift for touching the soul, for staring down the rugged paths of life, for singing the truth of the stories there...stories we all share, if we've lived long enough.  Onstage, she spoke of her own struggles and joys, like discovering her six brothers and sisters in 1999, after years of living as an adoptee.  Some of her siblings and their families were at the concert.  Their connections to her stories and songs were palpable, full of love.

Laura sang of her family, newly found, and of her imagined family, as yet undiscovered.  She told stories of how the songs came to be: some borrowed, some bestowed by visitations, some about relationships found and lost, about a woman who was "five miles of crooked road" but who gave her a home for four years of recovery following her accidents, and some from her own hard work and inspiration.

The lyrics from one song "Inspiration" resonated with my own struggles to write:

Well I jumped outa bed because I thought I had something to say
But it sounded like everything I said yesterday
Well it comes and it goes but you never know when
The page is wide open but I can't get in

This ode to the composer's struggle was written by Bruce Guthro and first sung by Kim Dunn.  Paul Buchanan of Mahone Bay accompanied Laura, as did four members of Riversong.

Listening to Laura Smith created a time out of time, when poetry, music, song, stories of the rough times and the inspirations of life poured over and through us, echoing the truths we each sense deep inside.  It was a beautiful thing.

If you click on the coloured words in this text, you'll go to another site with additional information.

Spring Dance

In March,
winter and spring
change places.

Spring, the master
composer, squeezes runs
from the dying snow.

The whole street stretches,
shares a faint
but urgent beat.

Feeling the rhythm,
the squills create blues
for the golden horns of daffodils.

And Spring trains the robins
to warble the words,
as she calls out the dance.


This poem is for The Sunday Whirl in which poets are challenged to write a poem using these words: march, change, master, die, street, train, faint, places, stretch, calls, create, words, share.  If you'd like to see what other folks wrote, click here at The Sunday Whirl.