The Only Thing That Ever Happens
There is a rhythm,
a cadence that once identified
can be heard echoing through every happening.
The melody, for example,
of the rise and fall
of a nation,
is the same operatic opus,
as your first day of kindergarten,
the same refrain heard
in the song of a bird
at dawn.
Preposterous, I know.
But somehow still
the same tune, the same beats
arranged in a way that allows you to ride them
like a surfer impossibly captures the power of the ocean.
How? When each swell
only ever happens once?
Well, you can read Life’s music
the way a surfer reads waves.
Consider - what are the notes
of water crashing to the shore?
The chords of the surge?
The tempo of the foam that washes up and away?
Where in the moments of your life have you heard those sounds before…?
When my mother died, I heard the thrashing wave violin,
the same strings I heard,
when the towers fell,
when years later I crashed my car.
The “What Now?” tune sung by the question’s choir
was in the wreckage, the rubble
and at her funeral.
I hate that tune, but I know it.
I’m beginning to catch all the ways
in which Life plays
the same song
but that makes it all no less fickle,
leaves me no better at avoiding the dissonant chords.
Still, hearing the phrasing
brings comfort to pain
because it’s something you can name.
You’ll recall enough of the song,
to remember that the playlist never ended
just blended
into the next anthem,
the next ballad,
the next carol,
the next hymn.
The music that’s everywhere,
every time changes.
Sad songs into hip little ditties,
dancing beats into heart wrenching serenades
and then all stacked back into the same note.
The more you hear it,
the more you’ll know that music
is the only thing that ever happens.