Volcanoes and the Language of Love

There's no escaping the fact that I'm a hard-wired romantic.  Most musicians are.  That is why we are drawn to music.  Music is the language of love, after all.  Sadly, some musicians don't get it.  Or can't communicate it.  But the very best musicians know how to channel the emotion of love into their music.

It is the uncommon occasion that I have the privilege to bear witness to a young person with this ability.  And when I do, there are tears.  Sometimes, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and I am violently shaken as I listen to a particularly emotive student.

A truly gifted musician can rip daggers of raw pathos into our hearts, and shake out all the rubble of life's upheavals and disappointments.  I listen to a soulful, deep performance and suddenly -- I can breathe.  Pent-up anger is out in the boxing ring.  Release.  Sweet release of things I cannot always detect...until the demons are exorcised on a musical journey.  Thank you, music.  Thank you for this abstract language of love.  Of loss.  Of release.


Unwelcome Eruption


A Poem by Jennifer Warren-Baker
Copyright 2017


Sounds pulsate, gently caress,

The melody whispers its subtle entrance.

As a small branch on the river, I cannot resist your seductive current.

My heart, once hard and cold, is warmed by waves of sound.

Like a mother who rocks and strokes her child to sleep, your rhythm envelopes me in love.

Then,
    
     building,
    
            climbing,

                     volume grinding,

A simmer of sadness bubbles up.

Quickly, I am overwhelmed.

Oh music!  How you bring me to foam and spit and spew!

I resist.  But, no use.

Unwelcome eruption, I knew you would come.

A volcano can only lie dormant so long. 

Too long, and the heart's lava spews forth...

        years of firey mess.

As the crescendo peaks violently, I look for the exit signs.

I don't want to.

I don't want to feel that now; I don't want the lava to trickle out for everyone to see,

but it does.

As the tempo races ahead, tears of fire burn my face. 

Searing, hot, lava adulterates the sides of that pretty mountain, as I realize the truth.

Unwelcome eruption that music has caused, you expose my boiling guts.

I am disarmed and weak.

And you, sweet music, remind me --  of all I have lost,

as I resisted the current that pulled me.

Losses in love:

     Love, abridged.

          Love, forced.

                Love, missed.

        Love, denied. 

Love I have not let myself feel.

Oh river of love, I resisted your sweet current, and the ocean still eludes me!

Music! 

How you peel away the layers and lay me naked to the vultures, the gossips, and the critics!

And yet, this unwelcome eruption was necessary.

Thank you, music, for showing me the truth.

The truth I didn't want to see under my pretty flowered slopes and ledges.