My song

There's a song I'm going to play on my violin someday. A song of my own making, out of my own rhythms and changings. It will have ever so many things in it -- a wizard, a flower girl, orchards, seashells, a lilt, a beach ball, sails, pastels, oceans, freedoms, love, and more. I call it my Spring Song.

It will begin with the sound of Winter bidding the world farewell. Poor sad wizard, whose magic has painted so many pictures on frosty windowpanes, whose swirling abracadabras of snow have made whole forests disappear, he will climb upon his iciclehorned stag, wave his icy fingers, then away he will gallop over the horizon to his long, lonesome exile from nature.

Then skipping down the hills will come Spring, tra la, sweetly daft flower girl of the seasons, her basket overflowing. At every window her face will peer in, beckoning to limbs creaky with cold, to eyes and ears eager for the sight and sound of bells ringing in the sky blue towers, to spirits longing to scrape time's rust away, and shine again.

And the light from her eyes will drift over the land, waking things up and making them warm to touch. Suddenly orchards will burst into bloom, like sweet fountains flowing from rocks that have finally yielded. And at the shore the sea will cover the sand with shells, white and pink and yellow and orange. Shells that will have, if cupped aright to ears, the answers to everything.

In my grandmother's house the old sewing machine will begin to sing with a lilt as her feet, given wings by spring, fly on the threadles. She has spring shirts for her grandsons, spring blouses for her granddaughters, and her own white dresses, too, all musty with winter, to mend. And she won't rest till they're all bobbing on the clothesline in the freshening breezes, laughing and tossing the beach ball of the sun.

An in my song people will simply float about, looking up at the sky, letting the wind blow their hair like sails, asking nothing of life but life itself. And every day will draw a different pastel of the same landscape, and then, at sunset, sign its name on the horizon in multicolored chalk. And children will climb trees to the very top, as souls climb up through the branches of the Bible , seeking a glimpse of forever.

For a moment, just a moment, my song will dip into sadness that even Spring cannot sve us from. Streets and stairs and doors that lead away from the heart; from games and riddles. But then it will rise again to the snap of my smitten spirit, cutting loose the rope that ties my floating seashell to the dock, and sailing out to sea. And there, kicking off my shoes, I will paint all the pictures I've ever wanted to paint. Pictures of the people I've loved, people with big eyes full of secrets and longings, people who have danced for me when I've been lost, danced away pain and waste.

So far when I touch bow to strings, nothing comes out but lemon slices, sunspots, moans of lost foghorns, and mind-maps I can't read. But deep inside I hear a song. It's rather long, it's lyrical and gay, it's high and low, and near and faraway, and sure as music lifts my spirits to the skies, I'll play it someday, I'll play it someday.