Find The Voice Before You Sing

Find the voice before you sing
he always said. And all those years
I thought I knew just where he lead.
Find the range and strike the note
with purity – in verity the music
flows, easy comes as easy goes.

I can’t sing to save myself and this
he knew, but he had read my fledgling
verse, didn’t laugh or censure me,
said instead that I should read with
breadth and depth, find the themes
which captured me.

And this I did; at least I tried to keep
the capture far and wide, sought
familiar names and new, wrestled
with ideas that grew in foreign fields,
heard the plaintive notes of tunes
without a graced accompaniment.

Find the voice before you sing – can’t
hold a tune, find the words or find the
ring of resonance in what you bring
to every verse; still didn’t seem the
special thing he meant. Queried him, this
voice would be – the “Message” then?

And he agreed.
© I.D. Carswell 2007-02-12