What their Concert Roused in Me

Barb Ester and Beth York playibg at the 50th National Women’s Music Festival

I.
When she makes the piano sing
and her partner raises her clarinet,
they lift me gently to another realm
where, so subtly, comes the passion.
When did I start to dance in my chair!
Then the piano spills a glissando
and the clarinet performs a magic
that whooshes my arms up into the sky.

II.
Time and time again,
what silk is this
I want to place my cheek against?
And oh the sway, let it be
every day, every day,
every silky day.

III.
Grandmother slows the sand
in the great glass, so I can
find her again, tell her again,
how her days shine through mine,
and make my hourglass
become a single spill of love.
Grandmother,
with tender remembering,
I bring you here to now.

IV.
Singing to those who came before,
now unseen but oh so close,
the heart no longer hesitates.
We’ve been apart so long.
This time, this time
we are not alone.
We’ll be what we want,
this time,

V.
Let the Mothers come
with serpents woven in their hair
on the night of the 13th Moon.
From sacred blood
let creation come.
The Mothers take the clay
to make themselves in power.
And seeing them, so do we,
create ourselves in ouroborous glory.

VI.
The journey never ends, my friend,
on the trail you travel in my heart.
You linger there, I carry you.
I’ll hear you always in my heart.

©Susa Silvermarie 2026