Though The Music Falls Strangely On My Ears

Grateful Dead *: Bird Song

New Speedway Boogie *

Music and dance.
What I have written
must surely suggest
a people cursed by Heaven.
No people on earth,
I am persuaded,
loves music so well,
nor dance, nor oratory,
though the music
falls strangely on my ears...
More than once
I have been at Mr. Treacy's
when at close of dinner,
some traveling harper
would be called in,
blind as often as not,
his fingernails kept long
and the mysteries of his art
hidden in their horny ridges.
The music would come to us
with the sadness of a lost world, each note a messenger sent wandering among the Waterford goblets.
Riding home late at night, past tavern or alehouse, I would hear harps and violins, thudding feet rising to a frenzy. I have seen them dancing at evening on fairdays, in meadows decreed by custom for such purposes, their bodies swift-moving, and their faces impassive but bright-eyed, intent. I have watched them in silence, reins held loosely in my hand, and have marveled at the stillness of my own body, my shoulders rigid and heavy.
--Thomas Flanagan
The Year of the French

Morning Dew *


SOMEWHAT OUTSIDE DIRTY FRENCH GIRL WASH
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A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME