What is it dead children say
To the coming of the morning,
When all their love has gone away
And mothers gave no warning?
Come say to me, I’ll say to thee
That all that’s lost is gone,
And all that’s left of worth bereft
Since we ran out of corn.
I’ll say to thee, you’ll say to me
That all that’s here remains,
Since we’ve no need of cattle feed
When we can drink our grains.
17 December 2004
Comments from the original post on OKCupid:
ReplyDeleteWitchzenka: I like this one, too. I admire your ability to rhyme, too, I usually skip that part. :P
Do you put these to music?
The Composer: Not as a rule, no. I did set this particular one, once, but I pulled the music away and used it for something entirely different. I enjoy setting other people's poetry. I enjoy writing poetry. I don't seem to care for setting my own poetry unless it is purpose built for a popular song. Search me. Not sure why. (And for the record, I am pleased with the music that I used to set "What is it." I simply preferred it on its own. And the poetry, likewise.) Glad you enjoyed it. I had a horrified moment where I thought it might have rubbed you the wrong way, and I'd have a great deal of explaining to do. (In the end, I really liked the contrasts between all these warm and squishy ideas like dawn and mothers' love, and all these cold dark ideas like starvation and dead babies.) I've been hoping I could draw you out with one of these eventually. More will follow. And more music, as well. For present I have an enormous backlog of stuff that I've never posted here.(Heck, I've never before posted the poetry anywhere.) Good to hear from you.
WZ: what would have rubbed me the wrong way? Children die, it is all a part of how little of what life is is ours to hold on to (which is part of what makes it so moving, imho). I've had people ask for some of my poetry to set to music. :) It's all creative commons so I don't care what they do with it, and how thrilling to have someone request that! (one was going to use one of my phyming bits for a rap-type thing, and one was going to use a couple of my non-rhyming ones that he thought had a good rhythm in songs on a CD he was working on. How flattering is that?!)
TC: It's pretty flattering all right. Hadn't realized you wrote poetry. Is there some place I could read your work?
WZ: http://witchzenka.livejournal.com/
*whoarz link*