Golden Melody Poem by Michael Maxwell Steer

Could I but spin a golden melody
from myself as a spider draws
her silken web, whose very flaws
make perfect records of her busy body.

Sitting here beside a motorway,
yet turned towards a golden cornfield,
I'm struck how rich is nature's yield
compared to those for which we choose to pay.

Behind me speeds a world of rules and deadlines:
in front the natural one where growth
is an arc whose inner truth
makes every individual heart a ripening vine.

In everyday existence there's a loss
of faith and openness to change;
thus round ourselves we've ranged
a web of barriers which we dare not cross:

and this, in place of rest and harmony
spreads discord and indifference,
less willingness to trust to chance
and a belief salvation lies in money.

This scientific world of separation
demands that all must stand apart,
but this is not the way the heart
does what it does best in germination.

A lovely tune holds synchronicity
of time and place, a remembered kiss
that suddenly showed how happiness
cannot emerge without complicity.

Seeking alignments in this ancient landscape
our forebears found their own attunement,
as we are challenged to find at-one-ment
of head with heart, and with it life's true shape.

Thus in each an inner heartsong grows,
unheard until a change of key
adjusts the individual's note to be,
wherefrom the final great fugato flows.


14/08/2009I first set this lyric as a solo song; then 4 years later I composed an acappella choral version as part of set Silent Witness.