To Reconsider Melody
By Rikki Santer
for Richard Bitting after “Canticle of the Redbud”
Your head inside a temple bell tiny temple
bells inside your head. You shapeshift into
a zen galaxy of shimmering silence, then whirl
tarantella atop a sunlit spider strand swaying
with rhymes of dew drops from your garden’s
redbud tree. Listen. The tender fizz of heart
leaves, the wee clicks of kinship roots deep
in the belly of your backyard ravine. This
soundscape sonogram reminds us. Pause
and harvest the polyphonic—erotic hymns from
fruiting fungi, the gyrating rattle and cackle
of seed pods grown dry. No music? All music.
All vowels and consonants, revered and
residing in an earthbound Song of Songs.
The above poem will be performed live by it’s author, this coming Friday,
October 20th @ 7 PM, at the Columbus Cultural Arts Center to the accompaniment
of Canticle of the Redbud, music by Rich Bitting.