Saturday, February 10, 2007

The Prettiest Song I Ever Heard

There is a memory somewhere in my being. Perhaps it is only an echo of a memory and it comes from far, far away. It comes with great power and it comes very rarely, but it always follows the playing of a song that is seldom heard today. It comes like this:

I am suddenly aware of being. I am an infant in the arms of a woman, probably my mother. She is holding me warmly, lovingly, swaying very slightly from side to side. I lift my head from her shoulder and look around. The room is lighted with warm, flickering light and there is a strong smell coming from those lights.

We stand in a semi-circle of perhaps six or eight people who are gathered around a piano, They are nice people and everyone here are friends, perhaps they are all relatives gathered for a reunion of some sort. Someone is playing the piano, and the others are singing, and the melody is what has lifted me into this presence. Everyone else, including my mother, is singing softly, very softly.

“Like dew on th' gowan lying,
Is the fa' o' her fairy feet,
And like winds in summer sighing
Her voice is low and sweet. “

It is peaceful, warm, and somewhat like the place I had just left. Love illuminates the room and fills the air, and I am lulled back to sleep as the singing slowly and softly fades away.

“Her voice is low and sweet,
And she's a' the world to me,
And for bonnie Annie Laurie,
I lay me doon and dee.”

© John Womack, All rights reserved,