Day 46. Something Wonderful
Welcome to Day 46 of the Poetry for Peace Poemathon, Friday 1st June 2018. I am very pleased to be joined again today by fellow-poet and writer, George Yesthal from the United States. His beautifully crafted and heartfelt poem, Upon the Shining Shore ( a fallen soldier's hymn) is included below. Its inclusion is rather timely considering the theme of my own poem today.
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Something Wonderful
by Steve Cook
Something wonderful's happening,
Has anyone noticed?
We live on a planet
Overbrimming with artists.
Wherever you listen or look,
Whatever you will,
Musicians and painters
With consummate skill,
Sculptors and designers
With the deftest of touches,
Composers and dancers
With magical flourish
Are busily working with true dedication
To revive and to nourish
The soul of their nations.
Down through the ages
There never has been
Such an army of angels
Stoking our dreams.
Where once there were dozens
The numbers exploded
So now there are thousands
Just as skilled and devoted
Or creatively driven
As Goethe or Turner
Keats or Beethoven.
Where do they all come from
To so suddenly appear?
Perhaps nobody knew it
But they were always right here,
But dire economics
And the strictures of living
Imprisoned the spirit
In straits unforgiving
And generations of genius
Died undiscovered
Under penury's shroud
By illiteracy smothered;
While the poet ploughed furrows
Alone with his rhymes,
The composer too harrowed
By the demands of his times
Could only make ditties
In the back of his mind.
But now it seems to me
That a miracle happened
And the arrival on Earth
Of our great civilisation
Freed us from the chains
Of want and starvation
So artists can flourish
And their wondrous creations
Can dance on the airwaves
Of mass communication.
Thanks to the progress
Of past generations,
This wonderful window
Of freedom flew open.
To create something wonderful
Therefore is our obligation,
To pay our debt wisely
Without reservation.
But the debt shouldn't weigh heavy
Or occasion some guilt
For rebirth is real
And we've contrived to inherit
What we ourselves built.
All I can tell you is
This much I have learned;
All we are heir to
Is thoroughly earned.
Upon the Shining Shore (a fallen soldier's hymn)
Would you await, dear heart
In the early morning’s glowing
By the meadow long for me
With the sleepy cattle lowing.
All along the wayside
And by the coursing river wide
I shall come a rolling home
For alas I have, in battle died.
But e’en if I shall bend and fall
My spirit heeds the loving call
Of your sweet beck, I shall return
In spring when the sweetgrass is tall.
And we shall join a merry dance
And I will take your lovely hand
To kiss once more then I shall leave
To touch no more the loam and land.
Should you in quiet evening hear
A soft ‘I love you’ brush your ear
‘Tis only me drawn back to you
So shed for me no mournful tear.
But tell my tale, my lot and lore
And miss me not forever more
For I shall wait for you away
Upon the distant shining shore.
Upon the shining shore
Upon the shining shore…