First, there was the rhythm and pitch of my mother, happy to have a companion;
Then another rhythm, a deep pitch nestled into my father’s lap as he performed his daily comics;
Then someone’s Lutheran mother who, with sweet conviction, promised that “Jesus loves me.”
For the Farmers Union, Gladys Talbot leads with “On her coat, she wears a union button” with a hundred adults surrounding me. The yearning, with farmers in clean overalls and women in cotton dresses, singing “Deep River” as I sang something I could not explain.
In Brownie Scout vests, our troop lilts through “White Coral Bells.” Oh, don’t you wish that you could hear them ring?
Johnny See already in his army uniform, at our piano playing and singing his composition. “One World united nations all, in peace and justice searching for a better world, I know..” I was not yet five but I could sing it for you now.
Dancing a polite minuet on our school stage, Tiffany elementary. Stay in step, turn here.
Building “Autumn Leaves” into four parts, for Gayle, Glenna, Carol and me. We sang for gatherings, for five years all around Great Falls, Montana. I still exchange hearts and politics with Glenna.
Then walking downhill to Main street Lewiston, the few and the daring singing “We Shall Overcome” someday, somehow, then shared wine to Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five.” We danced in the college tennis court, a boisterous collect of friends. “Can’t get no satisfaction” politically speaking. Yet.
University town professors in Moscow, Idaho, strangers to each other, for each other, united momentarily by “Love is like a Magic Penny.” The hope of it.
Learning the accordion, singing to my daughter, “I shall survive.” She did, I did.
Years after the opera chorus, Tom and I may break into Carmen’s taunt “Love is a rebellious bird,” in French. Then landing, in this moment.
