One of those poems I don’t want to murder to dissect, but simply offer you for your delight. I love the way words, used this skilfully and sparely, can pierce us. Here it is: ‘The Second Music‘ by Annie Lighthart.
This poem turns up on mindfulness sites and I can see why—it’s about attending to the present, realising that everything is here, that the ‘second music’ is ‘always present’—but somehow I feel a bit irked that such a timelessly beautiful poem should be yoked to the achingly trendy, of-the-moment mindfulness movement.
But then, I guess this means more people might come across ‘The Second Music’ than might otherwise; so perhaps I should just stable my highhorse and leave you to enjoy this reminder of how the world (to quote The Matrix) can be “pulled over our eyes” but that something constant and lovely inheres in all things. And that if we ‘set [our] ear[s] to it’ it can be as steady, sustaining and reassuring as a heartbeat.
Sigh.
