More than Anything(On Listening with my Father to Stanley Black and the London Philharmonic LP,
Music of a People.)
More than anything else,
My music is Jewish:
Other music rocks and rolls
Or glides and swirls.
Mine explodes in praise—
Then collapses in malaise....
One sweet tone sustains
Hope,
Defies despair,
Uplifting, sears the air—
Ecstasy of melody—
Until,
Recoiled, my melody
Bends into a mournful minor key—
For all the deaths it has chanted
And has yet to chant.
Because
More than anything else,
I am Jewish.
Other cadences fall like leaves
Of common, major chords;
Our melodies break and modulate
Like waves against the shores.
Inheritors of songs without words
Express exquisite yearnings:
Dai!
De diddi
Dai
De diddi
Dai dai dai dai dai dai
Dai!
De diddi Dai
De diddi
Dai!
Music rising in gyres
Sweeping downward, inward,
Subdued fires
Irrepressible—yearning
Yearning!
For the last blast of the ram’s horn;
Yearning!
For the land that is the promise;
Yearning!
That the Covenant be sealed—
Knowing that 613
Must somehow be fulfilled.
Copyright 2010 Laura Bernell
