via Daily Prompt: Ovation

And the breathless offerings were more than one might think could be born of those urgent youthful times. It was a sweep of spirit, of lightning, a reckless musing, an underground current that struck between soul and head, then landed in folded hands back stage or in laps awaiting plenty in auditoriums. And, better, sitting before an open-air stage, imagining what was to come. To step forward, to sing like that or caress strings with bow, to interpret and let go night’s starry dustings and old earthen secrets that left one wordless. And sky then unrolling from striated heavens, the lake water a veil of golden days and a remembrance of underwater survival, and wisdom rising to the top like flying fish: it was that sort of Interlochen I knew. Its fallible prodigies, miracles sprung between measures, fantasies danced right into the open with arms flung high: this was knowing that music was God’s mouth. That Art being made was not only a dream but the truth. The only necessary truth.

When they all rose and applauded as if the offerings were worthy of critical minds, those hands coming together–what then visited me, us, was that piney wind of the North scenting our thrilling hearts. Time caught in a fine web like a jewel, even that could remake things. And how crystalline a sound those invisible currents, free of strife, wild with powers of life, burnishing skin and all beneath it with simple beauty. The blood ran swift, if yet not fully fathomed. A blessing or a curse?–to create, be recreated in every moment of labor, surrendering. It was the way we reached and moved, as if nothing, no one knew better that living was an act of funneling those riveting forces of life.

And an ovation–a bow, a smile given– was only the beginning for any who felt deeply, privately that call like shy, enchanted lovers to the beloved–audience or not.

They were the breathless offerings, more than one might think could be born of those urgent youthful times. The heartbreaking and lustrous times. And the urgent leaning in to art, the making and giving of it–these live on like ancient creatures we will always care for that will not, cannot bear forgetting.