Songs of Always
Black-blown sky to blue–
the music-seer asks
if dreams are the ships we sail at night
on purple-shadowed seas,
and what are the songs the rocks sing?
He has known storms,
and rain like honey,
sweet with the scent of roses,
he has death-wandered,
emerged to witness
a sparkle-symphony above,
now he whispers love-ballads and lullabies,
star-breathed tunes of time-dazzlers, the rhythms of what is and what might be.
My poem from the Oracle, who, of course, knows the myths of many cultures. Readers sometimes wonder if the image or poem came first. In this case, it was a combination. The Oracle gave me words and phrases, black-blown and blue, if dreams, storms, honey, etc. I used “fiddler” in the my first draft, but as I was writing, the poem seemed to be about Orpheus, so I changed it to music-seer.
Yesterday and today: Merril's historical musings 
Lovely! Sleep and dreams and questions. So many sensorial details too.
Thank you very much! 😊
🙂
“what are the songs the rocks sing?”–oh, I love that. And “star-breathed tunes”. Our poems are very complementary today. Both mirrors and echoes. (K)
Thank you very much, Kerfe!
Ours are complementary, and Jane’s fits, too.
We all have sleep/dreams this week.
I’ve been having very vivid dreams. You and Jane have appeared in some of them too, come to think of it.
Wow–that’s wild. I wonder what it means.
Me too.
Beautiful Merril. Read aloud (in a whisper) it feels wonderful, lovely roll and flow of words and line. Dream images rising and fading into the next. Poetry!
What a lovely comment, Chris. 💙
Perhaps I’ll read this one for the next dVerse OLN Live.
That’s a great idea Merril. I tried to figure out what the dVerse OLN was all about recently but wasn’t successful. I may have given up too easily…
You post on dVerse sometimes, right? On Open Link Nights, there is no specific prompt, you can choose to post any one poem of yours. On OLN Live–if you want to join the live event, you click on the link. It’s Google Meet. Unfortunately, the last time, the wrong link was on the dVerse post at first. Oops! It’s about once a month the usual time on Thursdays when the posts go up (3:00 P.M. my time), and then also on Saturdays (10:00 A.M. my time). If you don’t want to join the live event, you can still post one poem, or you can join and just listen if you don’t want to read. I hope this helps! 🙂
Thanks very much for this Merril. Yes, i have posted on dVerse. I will try and check it out.
I love the way this poem builds off the peaceful and meditative nature of the artwork to create a wonderfully evocative reading experience. ❤
Thank you very much! 💙
The words started it off, and then the painting influenced the final version.
Now that is a true collaboration! And a beautiful one, at that. Almost like a fairy tale or fable…
Thank you so much! 😊
My pleasure 🙂
For me, the heart of the poem is right here:
if dreams are the ships we sail at night
on purple-shadowed seas,
and what are the songs the rocks sing?
I liked staying with that question for a time to hear it resonate with potential answers.
Thank you so much. That makes me happy that you want to stay with that question for a while. The Oracle seemed to want it, even if I don’t quite understand.
You’re welcome, Merril. Oracles are like that, I think. They have the questions, not the answers.
Yes, I think that’s exactly right, Liz.
A beautiful poem, Merril – the second stanza is exquisite!
Thank you so much, Ingrid!
I love your hyphens – and how if slips in surreptitiously
I appreciate your close reading, Derrick. Thank you so much!
Fabulous! Within this poem’s wisdom lies many of the reasons I married a musician.
Thank you, Merril!
Thank you very much, Resa!