December 25, 2004
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SATURDAY POEM I ADMIRE
(And Merry Christmas to everyone)The Silent Singer
The girls sang better than the boys,
their voices reaching All the way to God,
Sister Ann Zita insisted during those
practice sessions
when I was told to mouth do, re, mi,
but to go no higher,
when I was told to stand in back
and form a perfect O
with my lips
although no word was ever to come out,
the silent singer in that third-grade
class
during the Christmas Pageant and Easter
Week, the birth and death
of Christ lip-synched
but unsung
while my relatives, friends and parents
praised my baritone,
how low my voice was,
Balancing those higher, more childlike tones,
my father said,
Adding depth, my mother said,
Thank God they had my huskiness to bring all
that tinniness to earth,
my great-aunt whispered,
so I believed for many years in miracles
myself,
the words I’d never sung reaching their ears
in the perfect pitch, the perfect tone,
while the others stuttered in their all-too-human
voices to praise the Lord.– Len Roberts, Professor of English, Northampton Community College in Bethlehem (PA), winner of Gugenheim, National Endowment for the Arts, and National Poetry Series awards, ten editions of poetry.
Deep Thought: “A lot of times when you first start out on a project you think, This is never going to be finished. But then it is, and you think, Wow, it wasn’t even worth it.”
Today I am grateful for: Hot cider
Guess the Movie: “Do you know what I would do if someone did that to me? I would kill him, I wouldn’t hesitate. I would stab him 78 times. I would chop off his fingers, slash his throat open, carve numbers in his chest, gouge out his eyes, I swear to God!… But that’s me.” Answer: Primal Fear, 1996.
Winner: Eliminate_the_Impossible.
10 Ways to Be a Better Person
#7. Understand that failure, while painful, can be beneficial. Learn from your own mistakes. Give the people in your life the chance to experience and learn from their own.
End of Day: 9:14 pm
+ = Got through Christmas Eve very nicely at my house.
- = Kind of got some anxiety stirred up today at my son’s house.
Comments (11)
I love hot coder
and I agree with #7 for too many times we try to shield the one’s we love
instead of letting them experience life for themselves
Merry Christmas to you too.
This is an extraordinary poem. And, you know, this is why almost every school sucks… they make failure a bad thing. Failure, of course, is an awesome thing. It is how humans learn, and making sure everyone knows failure is perfectly ok is how you get people to take chances…
Anyway: Happy Christmas Day
Happy holidays to you! I don’t know the movie, but it sounds like one of those thoughtful serial killer things. : )
Primal Fear, Ed Norton did a spectacular job in that.
Very good! Right under the wire.
The silent singer reminded me of chorus in sixth grade. We practiced and practiced for the All-State choral competition, and when the day came I was too sick to go. Our chorus won a prize and when I got back to school from my illness everyone told me how good it was that I’d been too sick to go, or they’d never have won. Our teacher, I suppose, didn’t believe in silent singers.
great poem…
“I love hot coder “
I must have still been drunk lol
and it was not from cider….
have a sweet Holiday Season
Hope the day was full of smiles and laughter. I love the poem.
Love it! What a perfect poem – from a former lip-syncer non-singer just getting over my fear of being audible, some 25 years post junior choir.