The Winning Bet

Janet Greene, an Orff colleague who has shared a parallel journey with me for some 45 years, sent me this stunning poem below. Here’s what I wrote back to her, followed by the poem she sent. 

 

Thanks so much, Janet. That's a keeper! Such evocative imagery—" the discount bin of the universe"/ "from trilobite to telescope"/ "this tenement of breath and bone." That is some eloquent poetry.

 

And then the meta-message inside the imagery. None of this should have been, and yet here it all is. Just like the wild bet that we can clean the cesspool we've created and flush out the fools and the fascists. Seems like a long shot in the face of the daily news, but some part of me is convinced that we will do it. So thanks for being part of the cleaning crew.

 

I'm excited to announce that my little contribution in the form of my new Humanitarian Musician book has now been born into print. No Orff dealers have it yet, but it should be ready for sale by the end of May. It won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I suspect you will feel its full flavor and warming taste. Thanks again and see you at the clean-up!

 

The Wildest Bet Is the Winning Bet 

 

You wouldn’t have bet on it,
the battered rock
orbiting a star
from the discount bin
of the universe,
wouldn’t have guessed
that it would bloom
mitochondria and music,
that it would mushroom
mountains and minds,

 

and the hummingbird wing
whirring a hundred times faster
than your eye can blink,

 

and your eye that took
five hundred million years
from trilobite to telescope,

 

and the unhurried orange lichen
growing on the black boulder
two hundred times more slowly
than the tectonic plates beneath
are drifting apart

 

and the marbled orca
carrying her dead calf
down the entire edge
of the continent,
carrying the weight
of consciousness

and consciousness

how it windows
this tenement
of breath and bone
with wonder,
how it hovers over everything,
gigantic and unnecessary,
like music,
like love.

 

            - Maria Popova