The Solo and the Chorus
WHICH SONG, WHICH CRICKET?
after Gabriel Mistral
by Maggie Smith
I began as one cricket singing
one song. Soon we were all singing,
The dusk was unintelligible.
I hadn't moved, but suddenly I was lost.
Which song is my song? Which cricket am I?
I will never be one cricket again.
I could wait for midnight's silences
and try to fill them. I could stop singing
and listen to the little me-shaped hole
torn in the roaring twilight. The sound
of me missing might be clearer
than my song. I could gift it to the night,
which misses its dear, departed silences.
Even the stars quiver on their own
high frequency. I'm sure they're lost, too.
This poem by Maggie Smith spoke to me today. I felt lost...a song in my own ear I could not hear in the world. We are, all of us I believe, acutely aware of the numbers of us struggling, competing, and practicing in our fields. The writers working, publishing, and singing their songs into the world. The number of musicians playing alone in their studios, recorded on YouTube, performing before a handful of others in cafes, alone for you on your headset. There are thousands of corporate experts, corporate leaders, start-up entrepreneurs from city to city. Uncounted actors on stages everywhere. Thinkers and teachers in universities, all the way down to the first grader puzzling out the alphabet.
Who will hear my song? Which song am I? Which me is me?
There are so many of us we feel drowned out by our numbers. Yet we are amplified by our chorus, powerful in unison. Smith's poem addresses the dichotomy between distinct individuality and the gathering of individuals in which what is distinct becomes lost. The feeling that the tiny hole left in the larger chorus if there were no "me" might be easier to pick out than our song.
It's hard to feel personal effort or individual work matters. We all tell the same stories over and again. Sure, striving for fresh and interesting, but, the same story. As are the songs, and the combinations of paint, and the marketing plans, the fashion design, the options in which engineers move wheels, raise walls, design thrust. Solos make the chorus.
Even the stars quiver on their own
high frequency. I'm sure they're lost too.
In this stanza Smith circles back around to a collective idea of brilliance. Stars, not star. Unknowable wondrous pinpoints of light. How do we keep track of our singular selves in a sky, a solar system, a galaxy, a universe formed of a plentitude of multiples? We shall always see ourselves from the smallness of one.
Listen to the little me-shaped hole/torn in the roaring twilight.
I love this tiny final thought Smith tosses into her lament, that we may gift our mute presence to the night, to "its dear, departed silences." We exist, Smith seems to say, in both song and silence.
We begin as one, singing one song.
after Gabriel Mistral
by Maggie Smith
I began as one cricket singing
one song. Soon we were all singing,
The dusk was unintelligible.
I hadn't moved, but suddenly I was lost.
Which song is my song? Which cricket am I?
I will never be one cricket again.
I could wait for midnight's silences
and try to fill them. I could stop singing
and listen to the little me-shaped hole
torn in the roaring twilight. The sound
of me missing might be clearer
than my song. I could gift it to the night,
which misses its dear, departed silences.
Even the stars quiver on their own
high frequency. I'm sure they're lost, too.
This poem by Maggie Smith spoke to me today. I felt lost...a song in my own ear I could not hear in the world. We are, all of us I believe, acutely aware of the numbers of us struggling, competing, and practicing in our fields. The writers working, publishing, and singing their songs into the world. The number of musicians playing alone in their studios, recorded on YouTube, performing before a handful of others in cafes, alone for you on your headset. There are thousands of corporate experts, corporate leaders, start-up entrepreneurs from city to city. Uncounted actors on stages everywhere. Thinkers and teachers in universities, all the way down to the first grader puzzling out the alphabet.
Who will hear my song? Which song am I? Which me is me?
There are so many of us we feel drowned out by our numbers. Yet we are amplified by our chorus, powerful in unison. Smith's poem addresses the dichotomy between distinct individuality and the gathering of individuals in which what is distinct becomes lost. The feeling that the tiny hole left in the larger chorus if there were no "me" might be easier to pick out than our song.
It's hard to feel personal effort or individual work matters. We all tell the same stories over and again. Sure, striving for fresh and interesting, but, the same story. As are the songs, and the combinations of paint, and the marketing plans, the fashion design, the options in which engineers move wheels, raise walls, design thrust. Solos make the chorus.
Even the stars quiver on their own
high frequency. I'm sure they're lost too.
In this stanza Smith circles back around to a collective idea of brilliance. Stars, not star. Unknowable wondrous pinpoints of light. How do we keep track of our singular selves in a sky, a solar system, a galaxy, a universe formed of a plentitude of multiples? We shall always see ourselves from the smallness of one.
Listen to the little me-shaped hole/torn in the roaring twilight.
I love this tiny final thought Smith tosses into her lament, that we may gift our mute presence to the night, to "its dear, departed silences." We exist, Smith seems to say, in both song and silence.
We begin as one, singing one song.
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