How Can I Keep From Singing

My life flows on in endless song

There is a song for every occasion

For every emotion

For every purpose

How often is time spent searching

for the just-right ever-changing song

Above earth’s lamentation

Sometimes above

but sometimes in concert with.

Angry, misunderstood, dissonant chords

of suffering, loss, and grief

I hear the sweet though far off hymn

In times of doubt, faith tells me it must be there

In the dark night hours hope comforts me

When the noise is overwhelming,

the melody nearly imperceptible

and the harmony hopelessly obscured

It is there even when I am unable to hear

That hails a new creation

But music returns

In a silent sunrise

a soft rain

a clean, blank page

a baby's cry

a full, fresh breath

a new day

Through all the tumult and the strife

Where there was surely a beginning,

in this singular word

This "through"

we know there is an ending

Through the tumult and strife

Not In, not amid,

Not mired in, or forever trapped

I hear the music ringing

Always, always, always there

Ringing is resonance

Resonance is life

It finds an echo in my soul

Empathetic vibrations

Received and resounding

Some left in the heart

but even more to share

To resonate
To live on

To find an echo in another soul
And another and another

To hear the music ringing

Through Through Through all the tumult and strife

Sweet hymns hailing a new creation

Above earth's lamentation

Life flows on in endless song

In concert with those who sing on earth

and those whose song forever echoes

How can I keep from singing