A note!

Part of a beautiful song

or maybe, part of a discord.

I only am.

Just a note.

 

One note in so many,

sometimes beautiful,

sometimes a slip of a pen.

A black dot on paper.

A sound in a mind.

A tear wrenching sound clip.

a peak, a valley, a crevasse.

 

I am used, I am discarded.

I have no control, I seek none;

yet I am beautiful or sad.

I am on the wing, on the wind

a whimper in a wood!

Come, gone.

A sound of immortality,

a sound lost in eternity.

For I am just a note,

and that is enough!

 

David Garlick, Puerto Vallarta, February, 2001

 

 

Thoughts on ‘A Note’.

The other day, at a poetry reading, I became aware of another level of understanding of the poem ‘A Note’. I realized that while the original concept was in expressing the smallness of my, or for that matter your life, against the whole history of mankind, that we as people may ring as brightly as a high C or just be an important part of the background music

It struck me that while a note is heard fleetingly in a piece of music that though it is no longer at our ear it is still available, it does not rot away. It is now, it was as always in our consciousness and will be there in the future.

Each life is a piece of music. It may be as important as a primitive drum note or as casual as the tune we hum while doing something else. All our notes are expressions of our humanity, of our individuality, of our being. 

And so my little poem while suggesting that life is brief and unimportant, also says that a note is very worthwhile, however fleetingly it rings in the orchestra of history. 

The process that first prompted me to jot down the lines that you read in the poem ‘A Note’ came back, as I waited to read the poem. It returned to show me just how important every note in every piece of music, of every life, really is.

Ring on loud and clear!

David. 

Please always tell me, truthfully, what you think of my pieces. If I am to improve I need to recognize what is poor as well as reasonable.

Thanks and best wishes. David.