This morning I woke up as usual and lay in bed writing my poem, rose to take photos to go with it, then opened my front door so my upstairs neighbors could go through to the porch when they got home from breakfast.  When Cathy wandered in, she asked if I realized that I had a friend waiting on the beachfront porch.  Who was it, I asked and she said she didn’t know but she was singing.

I went out in my nightgown to see who it was and found a stranger–a singer/musician who had read my blog and come to meet me.  By the time I’d thrown clothes on, Fred–a slide guitar player who had been walking by  and heard her singing, had come to join her.  As the morning progressed, another woman wandered by on the beach.  Fred recognized her as a musician who lived on the same island as he in Canada, so he invited her to join us.  They ended up ordering breakfast from the cafe next door delivered to my porch.  I made coffee and they spent the morning.  Then Fred stayed to practice my “Ballad of Poor Molly” which he has set to music.  By 3 o’clock, he, too had left and I fell asleep on the couch and passed the rest of the afternoon napping–something I almost never do.  As I was waiting for my upstairs neighbors to come down to leave to meet friends for dinner, I wrote the first few stanzas of this poem.

Found Poem

One and two and three and four.
Four little music makers pounding on my door.
One beats a rhythm, one toots a horn––
wild and sweet––sort of forlorn.
One hums a tune behind her teeth––
a sort of descant underneath
the melody on the steel guitar.
The gulls reel in from near and far
to add their screams to the refrain,
then fan their wings, silent again.

Four musicians at my gate.
I wait for their music to abate.
Then I go and let them in
to add my music to the din.
I sing my lyrics fast and slow
first soft then loud, my lyrics go
up and over the drums and horn–
out into the sandy morn.
Over the rocks and out to sea,
setting all our music free.

When the drummer leaves my porch,
she leaves just three to loft the torch.
Too soon the horn, too, dies away,
but the hummer’s here to stay;
and steel guitar swells out to fill
the morning air until until
the morning bursts into full sun
and our melody comes undone.

Soon guitar and singer fade,
their morning share of music made,
and I fold my songs away.
I’ll bring them out some other day.
With music blown away, I wind
only words around my mind.
They weave their spell with me along.
I lose myself in their noisy throng.
Wander aimless, round and round,
in getting lost, this poem is found.

(You can see my “Ballad of Poor Molly” post HERE.)