Mountain Dulcimer
One summer morning, I improvised tunes on my dulcimer while remembering Jean Ritchie (Ping start non-rhyming first line.)
An English Jueju for the Mountain Dulcimer
Elm tree first lark winds comb grass
Brick porch old man picks brush strings
Folk lute pure mode low drones rich*
New tune sweet notes heart now sings
*Miriam Webster definition of rich: “full and mellow in tone and quality,” as in a “rich voice.” But rich also sounds a bit like “Ritchie,” so I evoke my dulcimer mentor, Kentucky folksinger Jean Ritchie.
About the dulcimer:
The mountain dulcimer is a simple folk instrument from America’s Appalachian region, lightly strummed on the player’s lap. It typically has three or four strings. Traditionally, the high string notes a melody while lower strings provide a musical drone. Frets are spaced to suit primitive modes. Sound holes are often shaped like hearts.
Kentucky folksinger Jean Ritchie (1922-2015) brought the mountain dulcimer to a wider audience through her performances and recordings. Jean extended her friendship to me as I developed my own style on this instrument. So I dedicate this poem to her.
I put the dulcimer aside for many years while I played electric violin in loud stage bands. In retirement, I again appreciate the dulcimer’s quiet simplicity.
Notes on the poem:
Cosmic resonance theory (ganying): Chinese philosophy posits that objects or actions can affect each other at a distance, as plucking a note on one instrument can excite a sympathetic vibration on another. Here, the bird sings, the wind (or the bird’s song?) moves the grass, the player’s hand strums the strings, the strings create notes that now lift hearts. Perhaps each action resonates with the others.
The first line looks out to the natural world: songbirds up in trees, then wind moving long grass. The second line brings our gaze closer: a man on a porch playing music. The third line takes the reader more intimately into the instrument itself. And the fourth line ties the human world of instrumental music to the natural world of birdsong and breeze. Those worlds now join in song.
The “heart” that “now sings” could be the player’s heart, the listener’s or reader’s heart, the spiritual heart of nature, or the instrument’s heart-shaped sound holes. Or all of those together.
Winds/picks. The formal rules for jueju ask that words in these positions balance each other with some shared or contrasting quality. My thought: The wind is nature’s force that moves the grass; the pick is a human device that moves the strings. And there is an additional subtle resonance: when I strum rapidly with my pick I create a miniscule breeze, the plectrum acting as a fan as it moves through the air above the fretboard.
Comb/brush. To comb and to brush are related actions. A secondary, subtle association: The word “brush” may suggest tangled woodland weeds, which resonates with “grass.”
Grass/strings. Both are long and thin; one natural, the other man-made. As long grass rustles in the breeze, it too makes sound.
Wedding Anniversary
I flew to Seattle the day after my 42nd wedding anniversary. Married June 27, 1981! In the air, I thought back to that beautiful day at Memorial Church (Harvard Yard, Boston). This was a rare trip alone away from my dear Deborah, so it was particularly poignant to think back to that first formal ceremony of togetherness.
The Jueju form here is ze start non-rhyming first line.
Poem:
Bright light gauze clouds raise up sight
Blue sky white jet chase down sun
Miles turn clock back June aisle past
Lace hat gold ring make hearts one
Notes:
On my flight to Seattle, the puffy clouds (“gauze clouds”) brought to mind the white, lacy hat that Debby made for her wedding outfit. I flew above those clouds through clear, blue skies. The sun’s gold disk then brought to mind Debby’s gold wedding band.
The flight west to Seattle, chasing the sun, did literally turn the clock back from Eastern Standard Time to Pacific Standard Time. And it turned my thoughts back to our wedding in June, 1981.
“Gauze clouds/ ”white jet.” These are both parallel and contrasting. The gauze clouds are white, soft, natural, and slowly drifting. The Alaska Airlines jet is white, hard, steel (manmade) and swiftly flying.
“Aisle.” The aisle is both my current aisle seat on the Alaska Airlines flight to Seattle and the remembered aisle in the wedding church in Boston.