Written on the Wind

Written on the Wind

         A number of years ago, around this time of year...[late October] I wrote a song called Written on the Wind, on a very strange night.

All the members of my family had gathered together to discuss the one missing family member who was far away at the time...and in serious trouble.
As was always the case, a hearty meal preceded further discussions of a serious nature, but once that meal was out of the way we all got down to brass tacks. Emotions ran high, which in itself was an emotional issue in my family. Heated discussion flowed like a river around the dining table hour after hour, until exhausted, we gradually drifted in different directions to various parts of the house. Often at times like this, I have a nameless tune playing in my head, and such was the case that night. Incessantly it ran through my brain, over and over.

         I was sitting in my sister's living room, which was very large...almost like a small concert hall. That same sister was sitting far away from me, on another couch...and farther away still was my father, down at the end of the room nearest the fireplace, in the most comfortable easy chair. Having carved out our personal spaces from each other, we paused and reflected on the evening's events. It was growing late. We were tired, drained, thoughtful.
Emotions were subsiding, at least I thought they were...until my father decided to recite a poem, a simple little poem that he had written. He started to speak, and my sister and I respectfully bowed our heads, listening.

         I listened as the words came, gently, elegantly....lyrically. Until the moment when there came a sound, the simple sound of my father's voice...breaking. He had stopped speaking in the middle of the poem. My head snapped up. I looked at my sister. Her head was still bowed. She would not look at me or my father. He took a deep breath, and whispered to himself..."Calm down!"
...and continued the poem, until he reached the end.

         At the instant I heard that sound, the simple little sound of my father's voice, that new and different note that it held, a tiny shy notion entered my brain, and grew and grew until I was sure of it. I knew that it was true. I thought to myself: "I do that too!"
But what was it? I thought about it, and then it came to me. Many years before that when I was still a boy, somewhere back along the corridors of time, I had learned that any art, or anything that you do that has value....has greatest value when the creator learns how to put the love felt in the heart...into their work.

         Well. I had known that little secret for so many years, before that night. But what I had never known before was where it came from....who had taught that marvelous trick to me. I could hardly believe it, because it came from the last place I would have thought to look.

I excused myself then, and departed from the house to walk a long time down dark and desolate country roads. The wind howled with all the fury in my soul. The rain pelted me and I hardly felt it. By the time I finally retraced my steps and returned to he house, the song was written....

Written on the Wind

Leaning on the shoulder of the night
everything's in black and white
between the shadows and the light
there's a heartbeat, keeping time
something wild, that can't be tamed
there's someone calling out my name
like a long-lost friend

The human spirit fills the sky
and I've been watching people cry
when I look them in the eye
I hold humanity
What I'm holding in my hand
I don't pretend to understand
I don't pretend...

The heart approaches, like a child
the jury of the soul, on trial
speaks on its own behalf, in a style
that we can't articulate
no-one in this life has heard
the poetry of the soul, in words
that they can defend

I was sitting quiet, just the other night
listening to my father recite
the words of a poem he did write
and there was love in his voice
I looked at my sister, she's a writer too
and at that moment, I just knew
that the story has no end

....'cause it's written on the wind.....

         Since that time , I have always wondered about that strange little realization, that sometimes it is so hard for us to acknowledge the sources of where the things come from that we hold so dear, and that matter the most. It can be right under our noses, and yet remain invisible. Of course...[wink]...I could never tell my father of this, in so many words. I had to write it in a song.