02.17.08
The Singer (Calvin Miller)
I have an Ohrwurm, and it is The Singer himself.
It was not the cover pictured on the right that attracted me
to this book, nor was it the musicality of the title, and it was more of a
God-given moira rather than luck that led me to redeem it from its dusty pile
at SM Cebu’s Book Sale.
Poet and painter Calvin Miller authors this nonpareil epic
poem in such a beautiful tenor that one can affirm that it is not a common
masterpiece although its narrative has been compared with those in the
tradition of C.S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien.
What I have on my shelf is only a third of a trilogy which consists of The Singer, The Song, and The Finale. The
Singer is based on the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and The Song is rooted on the book of Acts,
and The Finale is an artistic
paraphrasing of the book of Revelations. Do
let me know if any of you should come across the remaining two-thirds of the
trilogy.
The Singer tells the story of Earthmaker,
his son, The Troubadour, and
the enemy of mankind, World-Hater. My effort to describe or review this
work would certainly be inadequate, the least I can do is impart these
lines.
For most who live,
Hell is never knowing
Who they are.
The Singer knew
And knowing was his
torment.
When he awoke, the song was there…
In rhapsody it played among the stars.
It rippled through Andromeda
And deepened Vega’s hues.
It swirled in heavy strains
From galaxy to galaxy and gave him back his very
fingerprint.
Only the stars and mountains knew it. But they were old. And man was new, and chained to simple,
useless rhymes; thus he could not understand the majesty that settled down upon
him.
But daily now it played upon his heart and swept his soul,
until the joy exploded his awareness – crying near the edge of sanity, “Sing… sing… SING!”
Two artists met one
time within a little wood. Each brought
his finest painting stroked by his complete Uniqueness. When each revealed his canvas to the other –
they were identical.
So once in every
solar system there are two fingerprints alike.But only once.
Before the song all
music came like muted, empty octaves begging a composer’s pen. The notes cried silently for paper staves and
kept their sound in theory only.
Oftentimes Love is so
poorly packaged that when we have sold everything to buy it, we cry in finding
all our substance gone and nothing in the tinsel and the ribbon.
He met a woman in the street.
She leaned against an open door and sang through her
half-parted lips a song that he could barely hear. He knew her friendship was for hire. She was without a doubt a study in
desire. Her hair fell free around her
shoulders. And intrigue played upon her
lips.
“Are you betrothed?” she asked.
“No, only loved,” he answered.
“And do you pay for love?”
“No, but I owe it everything.”
The singer touched her shoulder and told her of the joy that
lay ahead if she could learn the music he had sung.
He left her in the street and walked away,
And as he left he heard her singing his new song. And when he turned to wave the final time he
saw her shaking her head to a friendship buyer. She would not take his money.
And from his little distance,
The Singer heard her use his very words.
“Are you betrothed?” the buyer asked her.
“No, only loved,” she answered.
“And do you pay for love?”
“No, but I owe it everything.”
In hell there is no
music – an agonizing night that never ends as songless as a shattered violin.
To God obscenity is
not uncovered flesh. It is exposed
intention. Nakedness is just a state of
heart. Was Adam any more unclothed when
he discovered shame? Yes.
“What would you like
to be when you grow up, little girl?”
“Alive.”
Every constellation
is but a gathering of distant suns. It
is mere perspective that makes Betelgeuse a star. Seen close enough she is a
raging fire. A sphere of flaming
hydrogen, if it be nearer, will dominate the sky and blot out all the lesser
lights. And such a fire will say again,
“Earthmaker has a living Son.”
Like autumn leaves triumph swirled upward into the sky. The song came on forever.
And distant quasars hurrying in space marveled that the
dull and joyless world had finally come of age.
Thus Terra joined the universe who knew the song so long
before, when the parent stars themselves were tracked by wounded feet. And for a thousand years the music never
ceased. It ricocheted through the
canyons and hung in promise over all of Terra’s seas.
And those who know the Ancient Star Song watch with singing
for the sign of footprints in the galaxies through which the little planet
rides in routine cycles of despair.
But joy seldom sleeps for long. And someday in a lonely moment mankind will shake an
unfamiliar hand and find it wounded.
“In the beginning was the song of love,”
he sang.
