Day 18 Sound Poem and the Music of the Spheres

The sounds emitted by planets and moons in our solar system provide the prompt for Day 18.  Electromagnetic waves were picked up by various NASA probes and translated into sounds we can hear.  You can here them here.  This one really resonated with me given my interest in metaphysics and philosophy.  In my research for this poem, I learned that Pythagoras theorized that the Sun, the Moon, and the planets each produced sounds based on their orbital revolutions.  He spoke of the universe as an immense monochord.  Pythagoras and other Greeks, drawing from other ancient cosmologists, envisioned the seven heavens each singing one of the seven sacred vowels (alpha, epsilon, (h)eta, iota, omikron, upsilon, and omega... a, e, h, i, o, u, o), forming a perfect harmony in praise of the creator.  Hmmm... has science proven Pythagoras right, at least in terms of the planets producing tones?  Fun to think about, and plenty of fodder for a poem:

MUSICA UNIVERSALIS

And could it be that we are music

emanating from the stars,

harmonies formed from the

immense monochord, sacred

octaves in a cosmic chant, the

universal hum, the celestial

Om?

Day 17 Sound Poem: A Child's Laugh

More great poems over at Author Amok.  Today's sound was a child laughing.  Here's my entry in response:

Fireflies of summer
become snowflakes in winter
with a child's laugh.

Day 16 Sound Poem: Trembling aspens and a conquistador's lament.

The sound for today's prompt was wind rattling through the leaves of a Quaking Aspen.  I missed Day 15's prompt, which was the bells of the Cathedral of St. Francis of Assisi in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Thoughts of New Mexico's Spanish history and culture combined with aspens in the mountains of New Mexico, north of Santa Fe-- the heartland of Hispano settlement as well as the location of the Pueblo Indian villages, once thought by the Spanish to be the location of the Seven Cities of Cibola.  All of that yielded this poem:

En la Arboleda de los Álamos Temblórosos

¡Ay! Mi corazón.  Mi amor.

My heart aches to hear

the wind through these trees.

These leaves, the only gold we’ve seen.

I cry as I think of you,

and the golden light of Andaluz.

¡Ay! This wind, these leaves—

a thousand castanets,

a thousand days searching for cities of gold,

a thousand nights dreaming of you.

¡Ay! Dance for me, my love,

dance for me in my dreams.

More Sounds of Poetry: Mockingbirds and a Woodhen mocking a Mockingbird

Poetry prompt sounds continue over at Author Amok's page.  The Northern Mockingbird provided the sound for day 12 (February 12), the Cape Eagle Owl on day 13, and the American Woodcock on day 14.  I didn't have anything for day 13, but here are my poems in response to the Mockingbird and the Woodcock.  In thinking about the mating dance and calls of the Woodcock, I got to wondering what might happen if a mockingbird tried to woo a woodhen with more than just a song.  The result is below.

MIMUS POETICUS?

Many-tongued mimic,
you sit outside my window
covering the songs of other birds.
In my bird-call ignorance,
I have no reason to judge.
I sit and enjoy your repertoire.
I wonder: When standing
at the microphone, if I spoke
only the words of other poets,
would I be mocked?
 

THE WOODHEN MOCKS

Yeah, I see you over there,

struttin’ around all stiff-legged.

You think you’re somethin’

but I saw you up there in the air.

You call that a dance?

I’ve seen turkeys spiral up better than you.

Hey, I’m gonna call you Rock,

’cuz that’s how you fell.

You’re suppose to fall like a leaf,

all graceful and floatin’ gently,

but the way you came down—Rock. 

No wonder you’re walkin’ so stiff.

Yeah, you may have the call down,

mimicking one of them fine woodcocks,

but honey, you ain’t foolin’ none of us girls.

 

YOUNG PEASANT GIRL TO THE ARTIST, JULES BRETON

(after the painting, Young Peasant Girl with Hoe, by Jules Breton)

Yes, I will sit for you—

there is more to life

than toil from first light

to setting sun.

But, draw me quick,

I have work to do.

You think I’m beautiful?

Then, work your art.

Keep me forever young

because we both know

that I will age too soon,

my face will become as

furrowed as this field,

my hands and feet,

calloused and cracked.

My body that you admire

will grow old and hunched

from this—how did you put it?—

idyllic, rustic life.

I am no fool.

Your painting of me

will hang in some salon

where your friends

and those with money

will praise the quality of your hand

while they look at mine.

But, I know

that when we both are dead

and in this ground,

it will be me that people look at,

and I will look at them from your canvas,

admired in this moment.

The Sound of Poetry at Eighty Words Per Minute

Over at Author Amok this month, Laura Shovan is posting various sounds as daily writing prompts.  I finally got in on the fun yesterday with a poem in response to the sound of typing on an old typewriter.  You can find my poem "Eighty Words Per Minute" at Author Amok at http://authoramok.blogspot.com/2015/02/2015-sound-poem-project-day-11.html

Here's my poem in case you don't want to go to Laura's blog to read it:

EIGHTY WORDS PER MINUTE

I learned the value of precision

in the sound of eighty words per minute,

the bell signaling each line’s end

and the left hand to action,

levering the platen’s return.

Mother could type faster, but she knew

there is a tradeoff between accuracy and speed,

with little room for margins of error.

I learned to plan ahead,

place a pencil mark near the bottom

of the sheet to know when

the last line on the page was reached.

I learned the patience and the value

of not going too fast

when replacing the ribbon,

guiding it to the other spool—

efficiency sometimes means slowing down.

I learned to love words proofreading

the legal documents she typed,

their structured forms,

their mix of English and Latin,

black and white, precision and logic

impressed onto each page

at eighty words per minute,

thousands of words now worth

more to me than any picture.