Arts, Crafts, Music, & Events of Breckinridge County Issue 12, May 2016 | Page 37

What has made me love rain? Why do I enjoy the rolling of thunder?
Why do I seek books and ideas, and view the olden ways with wonder?
What has endeared me to dulcimers, mandolins, and singing fiddles?
Each person’s loves and joys are their own uncharted riddles.
Why are quiet, rural people, and a cabin with a porch my desire,
Why is it colors, seclusion, music notes, and words I read, that I daily require?

Some people talk and talk, yet, they really never say a valid word;
They do not seem to know, in the quiet, the voice of wisdom is heard.
If you must speak, talk to me of rose gardens, barns, and rushing streams,
Spin a tale of good plain folks, butterflies, and golden moonbeams.
Tell me how you overcame a great loss, or of a battle you finally won,
Speak to me of yellow dandelions, or of a new path you’ve begun.

Sing to me some old forgotten Scotch mountain ballad,
Chant a tale of a stormy night, or of a day when the sky was pallid.
Tell me of the year crops dried up in your field; whisper the mystery of rainbows.
Reveal the story of long past footsteps, sit silently with me and gaze at falling snow.
For it is the everyday events that life is played out on stage and spent;
It is in the woven cloth of simple themes our souls have come and went.

©Lois Abbott Tanner