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What does it take to see the color of music? Well, take an old boom box, some music, paints, and an ultra slow motion camera, and you’ve got the ingredients for razzle dazzle. Check out this video:Here’s the link to the colorful, slow-motion video in case that works better for you:
(https://youtu.be/5WKU7gG_ApU)
Yeah, I know that’s a multimedia way to illustrate the color of music.
Because music doesn’t actually have a physical color. Neither do words. But words and music (and many other sounds) can paint the most beautiful, colorful pictures in your head.
50 years ago, when I was even younger than I am now, I carried a 19 cents Bic pen and a spiral notebook with me everywhere I went. Because I wanted to be prepared, at all times, to write down any and all poetry that worked its way to the right side of my brain.
For the first eight months of that year I lived in a small town, of about 1500 people, in Eastern Kansas. (life sure can circle back on itself, but more about that some other time)
Anyway…
I remember a drive out into the Kansas countryside one Spring day after a rain. I had decided to take in the damp, fresh air, and rural scenery to see what ideas might spring up (see what I did there?). And I figured I was prepared to talk about fast-moving streams. Or fertile, green fields of grass. Or even rainbows of wildflowers.
But, instead, I pulled over and stopped next to an old country fence. There was sort of wide spot in the road, and there was no traffic, because, well, as I said, it was rural Kansas. And I rolled down the window and sat there listening to nature. No city sounds. No hustle bustle urban sounds. Only the hustle bustle (wow, I think that’s the most times I’ve ever said hustle bustle in one paragraph…nope, I just added another one) of birds and bugs and breezes.
Then, I saw it.
A drop of rain. At the very tip of a limb on young sapling. I wondered how the little drop could just hang on to that limb. Why didn’t it fall off? And then, a sun ray made its way into the little drop, and it started to shine out a tiny rainbow.
It was such a small, almost insignificant moment. But I knew I was the only person in the world who was ever gonna see that particular drop of rain on that particular limb. Yeah, I know that might not mean a darn thing to you. And you might even think it’s silly to place such emphasis on something that happens trillions of times every day.
But, even in the smallest things, I see ways to appreciate what a complex, yet simple, world God created for us. And, being a poet, it brings me great pleasure to write about as much of it as possible.
So, on that Kansas spring day, all those years ago, I thought about the color of music as I wrote…
Glisten
If you could listen to a glisten,
What do you think you would hear?
I think the sound that would be found
Would ring out sparkling clear.
Glisten is the happy sound of happy children
In their happy worlds.
What a joy to enjoy when curled-up glistens
Are uncurled.
Make for me a glisten I can hold inside my hand.
I could carry it with me, and
I wouldn’t need a band.
This is but a moment in our lifetime.
I’m a word and you’re a word, and we rhyme.
If we glisten along our paths,
Our paths will glisten too,
And if you glisten for me,
I know I’ll glisten for you.
© 1974
Now, why waste time going online to find all my really refreshing Rhymes and Reasons? Just jump on the The FunderFlash. And I’ll send them directly to your inbox. Do it now, and I’ll send you some songs and some other surprises: https://www.TonyFunderburk.com
Stay tuned,
