The Minstrel

The Minstrel
 
I met a minstrel on the road
And walked with her a while.
I heard her singing as she walked.
I listened, with a smile.

And this is what she said to me
Upon that twisting way.
Her every word remains with me
Unto this very day.

“I found you just by happenstance,
And while I have your ear,
I’ll sing to you the songs that come,
Before they disappear.
 
“I’ll sing to you of land and sea,
Of sky that vaults above.
I’ll sing to you of innocence,
Of tenderness, of love.
 
“I’ll sing to you of villages
Beside the rippling lakes.
I’ll sing to you of sentience,
Of consciousness that wakes.
 
"I'll sing to you of mountains and
Of foothills and of plains.
I'll sing to you of dancing
At the starting of the rains.
 
“I’ll sing to you of patience and
Of science and the arts.
I’ll sing to you of courage and
Of hopes in human hearts.
     
“I’ll sing to you of swirling clouds,
Of thunder, lightning, rain.
I’ll sing to you of rapture and
Of sorrow and of pain.
 
“I’ll sing to you of sunrise and
The fiery, blazing noon.
I’ll sing to you of sunset and
The brightly shining moon.
 
“I’ll sing to you of multitudes
Of men and ants and stars.
I’ll sing to you of horrors and
Of all the senseless wars.
 
“I‘ll sing to you of present times
And also other things.
I’ll sing to of history
And what the future brings.
 
“I’ll sing to you of turbulence
And of the times serene.
I ‘ll sing to you of what I've felt
And what I've heard and seen.
 
“And when you’re tired of what I sing,
Then you can bid me leave.
But when I’m gone, with all my songs,
I trust you will not grieve.
 
“I do not know from where they come,
the songs you’ll hear me sing,
Perhaps you’ll hear that singing too,
When I have taken wing.
 
“And then perhaps you’ll seek for one
Who’ll lend, to you, an ear,
And hope she will be stirred by what,
Through you, she too can hear.”
 
And so that minstrel sang to me
Her songs of light and dark.
And though the years have passed since then,
I still, to them, can hark.
 
And just as she had said to me,
I hear a singing too,
That comes from where I do not know,
So I can sing to you.
 
2015 May 14th, Thu.
Brooklyn, New York