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earth’s song

songs from ESCAPE BY BALLOON

by W.E.R. La Farge

i:  earth’s song (1971)

I lie alone
remembering changes
how sudden crystals grew
from water falling
in a cup in a rock
surprising forms
acids in a cup in a rock
receiving lightning
a cup in a rock receiving lightning
I am here
I lie alone
no one completes me
after lightning
I bide my time
I hold my forms beyond surprising islands

I lie alone
remembering changes
how grinding ice came down
the slide of earth
rub of rivers
knuckles of trees cracking rocks
receiving ice surprising
cracking rocks receiving ice
a tree of rivers sprang inside me
I am here
I lie alone
no one completes me
after water
I bide my time
I hold my face beyond surprising rains

For accompaniment….

 

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{ 5 comments… add one }
  • Catherine August 30, 2015, 11:14 pm

    Today I opened a prayer book to this lovely poem, and was so happy to read it. I copied it out by hand to catch the rhythm. I’m glad to discover this site and look forward to reading more of his poems. This one is beautifully presented in the book I have, Earth Prayers, with the two stanzas balanced side by side.

    • Annik August 31, 2015, 8:56 am

      Thanks for your very kind words, Catherine. I will continue to post poems by my dad in the coming months.

    • Ronnie Roberts February 4, 2021, 9:28 am

      Catherine,
      I, too, just this morning discovered this poem in that very same book, “Earth Prayers”. This is now Feb.4, 2021 during the false time of Covid-19. I looked up W.E.R. La Farge online and found this site. I wanted to see what other poems he had written and I found the one , “to Catch a Blessing” about the magic of gatherings, and how it takes an entire community to harness — “to catch” — the blessing that is “in every place…going round & round | waiting for the circle of lives.” This poem really spoke to me, especially at this time since we have all been enduring a year-long’s lock down which has denied us all the joy and magic of those community gatherings, which we may have taken for granted, and which we now need to claw back for our own psychological, spiritual and physical well-being.

      I look forward to reading more of La Farge’s poems. Thank you, Annik.

  • Lawrence H. Bradner May 5, 2017, 7:21 pm

    In 1988 I attended a slide-show and reading of poems by W.E.R. Lafarge at the URI Bay Campus. The poems were inspired by his love for the Pettaquamscut River and especially for the person with the boats on the west side of Upper Bridge. Your father concluded the man I had seen from the car for years was murdered. At the end I went up to express my great appreciation for that evening. I told him I was just about to start writing the first chapters of my book “The Plum Beach Light” and that listening and watching that night was an inspiration for what I was starting. I wanted to present the West Passage of the Bay with a love like unto his devotion to the River. I developed my first chapter introducing the West Passage and my fifth about bay freezes and about the ’38 Hurricane in ways I had not originally expected. I owe much of that to Mr. Lafarge. I am grateful for the opportunity to share this with you. Larry……….Lawrence H. Bradner

  • Charlie October 30, 2018, 4:17 pm

    “The person with the boats on the west side of Upper Bridge” That was Bill Lacy, and here is a page with photos of Bill, as well as his neighbor Bill Yoman, who with his brother Joe, ran the farm next to Lacy, also on the river. Yes, Lacy may have been murdered. I lived across the street from Lacy and the Yoman brothers, and walked the trail on the Lafarge property frequently, right through college in the late 60’s-early 70’s. Mr. Lafarge allowed us to camp out on the lake front of his property, and I remember meeting one of his daughters when in college and walking the property one day. He was a wonderful and generous man, and some of my family still live on the river. My childhood there, beginning in the 50’s are the best memories I cherish.

    http://stephenlirakis.com/?p=62&fbclid=IwAR2CoJF2YrAIPvPicYS47cdEno8Il3U4ODia1hC7SJzIhlbUJh8FOrLg9ek

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