To the motion be true

Thursday, that fake harbinger of weekend, the great pretender, almost Friday. When I first got up this morning it looked like the weather would be dry and mild. By the time I left the house, though, it was steady rain.

Wet or dry, this is a stunningly beautiful time of year here. Everywhere I look I see lush deep greens and bright new-growth spring greens. Trees are blossoming in soft pink and white, the early rhododendrons and azaleas are starting to pop in a wide variety of colors, and the purple heather —now a part of so many urban landscapes— adds a complementary color along the foot of the everywhere-green. Seasonal change abundantly visible and visceral.


Today's randomly selected soundtrack was excellently chosen by the small digital gods of the iPhone. This was a string of tunes that played nicely together, as if designed to be played in just this order. Yet they will likely never play again in this order on mine or anyone else's iPhone. Could happen, statistically, but probably won't. Nothing in this algorithm is that static.

The same holds true of the poetry selection from this morning's "spin" of the Poetry Foundation iPad app. This app opens to a "spin" button, which then randomly selects two themes from two separately scrolling lines and pulls up poetry related to that combination. Today's spin combined the themes of Gratitude and Youth, and the first poem offered matches this morning's theme of changes. Easy As Falling Down Stairs by Dean Young, starts off with: To always be in motion there is no choice... and later goes on:

No matter
how stalled I seem, some crank in me
tightens the whirly-spring each time I see
your face so thank you for aiming it
my way, all this flashing like polished
brass, lightning, powder, step on the gas,
whoosh we're halfway through our lives,
fishmarkets flying by, Connecticut,
glut then scarcity, hurried haircuts,
smell of pencils sharpened, striving,
falling short, surviving because we ducked
or somehow got some shut-eye even though
inside the hotel wall loud leaks. I love
to watch the youthful flush drub your cheeks
in your galloping dream.

or we can draw on Sam Baker's lyric from this morning's first song, Juarez:

A beautiful woman
Wraps around his shoulder
Eyes painted like clay
Except older
She says hell of a deal
Ain't it
This getting older
He sings an old song
A song to himself
He sings waiting round to die
Waiting round to die

or (with more grace), Bruce Cockburn from Mighty Trucks of Midnight:

I believe its a sin to try and make things last forever
Everything that exists in time runs out of time someday
Got to let go of the things that keep you tethered
Take your place with grace and then be on your way

or, better still, Cockburn again, from The Gift:

These shoes have walked some strange streets
stranger still to come
Sometimes the prayers of strangers
Are all that keep me from
Trying to stay static
Something even death can't do
Everything is motion
To the motion be true

That all seems about right on a beautiful, though wet, spring morning. To the seasonal change, to colorful rebirth, to gratitude and youth, even, yes, to death in its time, to the motion be true.

Today's full playlist:
- Sam Baker: Juarez
- Phil Keaggy: Lady Slippers
- Bruce Cockburn: If A Tree Falls
- The Beatles: Long Tall Sally
- Dire Straits: Money for Nothing
- Sheryl Crow: Letter to God


- Posted via Hermes.