A Quiet Place

What do we need to make us friends again?

We're not so very far apart.

What makes this emptiness?

Tell me when these silences began.

Long ago, you were all strength and life and joy to me.

All magic. All music. All of life to me.

You were my charm and all delight to me;

My heart and mind; you were my love, the sun at night to me.

And what has happened to dull the mystery?

And where is our garden with a quiet place?

Why can't we try to find the way again to peace and life?

Can't we find the way back to the garden where we began?

-Leonard Bernstein, "Trouble in Tahiti"

What C major sounds like today

Good days, bad days, I've had a few of those.
Same old story - I know how this song goes.
At least I did, but now I'm not so sure.
Nothing's in its place; nothing's certain anymore.

Birds fly, trees sway - why can't I be like that?
Happy knowing what I am, in fact, and leaving be?
But truth has been obscured.
I am only human, and I'm always wanting more.

And the world is a place, and I pray it's on my side,
But I'd find greater comfort if I just lay down and died.
I don't know what's become of the boy who once knew sunshine.
What's become of the boy who knew sorrow but was strong?

-Nerina Pallot, "Mr King"

Nerina Pallot

Why this is not the number one song on Earth is entirely beyond me.

Where my heart was...

Why I do what I do

In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.

Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Not for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.

-Dylan Thomas