The piano keys are discordant
no matter how much you tune them
The guitar has lost its strings
its hollow filled with dust
The gong lays shattered
upon the ground
Yet you stand
untouched
whole.

On some days
the silence drags me down.
Presses itself into my chest
hard enough that I can't get out of bed.
It fills me with a nothing
a cloying emptiness ringing in my ears.

Sometimes I let myself sit there in the silence.
Curl up in my blankets and sleep away the sun.
Give in to the feeling
that even sitting up is too much effort,
let alone walking to the kitchen.

On other days,
responsibility drags me away.
A job I have to work,
a meeting I have to attend.
But even then I can still feel the silence
where my beating heart should be.

Then there are the days where I turn on music.
I pull out my phone
and press play.
And I can finally hear something over the silence.
A beat, a melody.
Notes that dance around my room
and urge me to follow.

It's not that the silence is gone on those days.
It still hovers in the corners of me.
The small of my back,
my hollow stomach,
the snarling spitting pit of doubt in the back of my mind.

But I can ignore it.
Just for a little while.
Maybe for a whole day.
Because the music picks me up
makes me feel lighter
if not weightless.
And my feet hover
when normally they'd drag
​and pull me into the floor.

The nightly chorus interrupted
by a deep thrumming bass.
It resonates in your bones
as it nears.

Then comes the staccato beat
against the windowpane
amidst the crash of brilliance
brightening the sky.

Each layer builds to a crescendo
rattling the night,
drowning out any thoughts
not focused on the performance outside.

And then
a slow softening
to pitter-patters
and quiet mumbling.

Even storms must slumber
after a show.

It's funny how a handful of words and a catchy tune
can wriggle its way inside me

lay dormant and silent for days
weeks or years

only to emerge at the moment I need them most
brining with them a flood of memories

from another time
and another me.

Somehow the song is still relevant
and just as powerful

as the first time I heard those chords
letting my own voice accompany its melodies.

Beneath the pitter-patter of raindrops
and the sing-song chitter of the birds

amidst the rustle of leaves in the breeze
and the shhhh of receding tides

quieter than silent paws
and insect buzzing

there is a soft voiceless chorus
leaking from the chasms and cracks of the earth.

It has no language or words
nor is it a song exactly.
It is the tune that encompasses everything we are
and all that has or will ever live upon this planet.
It is she whose movement and heat bring us life.

She is earth.
And she is singing.

Won't you listen?

I think the songbirds outside my window have insomnia.

There hasn't been even a sliver of sunshine
the tiniest trace of anything except night
in hours.
But for some godforsaken reason
they're still chirping and chatting away.

The sound of birdsong is more jarring at night.
A piece of natural music that's out of place.
Like it's been recorded and replayed
when someone should be missing it.

Instead being comforted
or lulled off to sleep
I just keep having moments of confusion
when I wonder why its so dark outside.

A bow let loose to soar
without an arrow in sight,
dipping low and shooting high,
calling forth notes and rhythms from the mind and breath.

Even from another city,
I hear the bow dancing
and taste the flurry of notes on my tongue,
wishing I could be in the room
as you play,
and that when I cheer for you at the end of every piece
you could hear me.

Funny how notes can carry you away
from whatever's gone wrong with your day, or week, or year.
Whatever fear is tickling in the back of your mind
and giggling at your back when you are near,
has no power over you while you're enthralled
within music's tender and unyielding grip.

Because no matter what troubles have socked you in the lip,
when the music starts to play
all fear and dismay
​scatters to the wind.

There's a song fluttering just out of reach
tantalizingly clear
in soft air that sings to you of possibilities.

Of summer days,
with soft meadows underfoot,
cooling shade beneath a tree,
the soft buzzing of honey bees
and flower petals.

If you could only just catch that first note
and follow it home,
maybe you'll fall back into those carefree days
and you can run barefoot again
through the cool morning dew.

One piece, a swashbuckling adventure
the next a shimmering dance of fae in the night
and yet another of deep ocean dreams that float at the back of your mind.
Isn't it amazing?
All the places that music can take you?