from The Rhythm of It, by Anita Sullivan

Poets have always walked the world with their ears extended like antennae, sifting the air for poetic snippets. They know the basic rhythms by heart, but need a constant supply of new images and ideas to pour into these rhythm patterns. . . . The only catch is that poems have a mind of their own. Each time we try to marry a rhythm pattern to a set of words that seems to fit, the pattern is either smitten or not by the supplicants. If not, we can’t look to meter or rhyme to bail us out; we have to put on our boots and go back out onto the land, like a bridegroom becoming worthy of his ideal bride.

—Anita Sullivan, The Rhythm of It

from Keeping Time, by Ann Copeland

Fast forward to the early twenty-first century, late Advent, a drizzly evening in Salem, Oregon. In the large house at the end of the street, set in among evergreens blinking with red, green, and silver lights, some thirty or forty folks of various ages have gathered for the annual party. Most have been connected to Willamette University for years, as has our host. Some, new to the faculty, bring small children. Others, newly retired, bring themselves and anecdotes about elderly parents or grandchildren. Many bring just themselves. The deadline for getting exam results to the registrar’s office is tomorrow or the next day. Nonetheless, this evening’s space is reserved; it holds the desire to gather and to sing.

After milling about and chatting over mugs of homemade Northwest Cioppino, accompanied by wine, cheese, bread, and too many sweets, we gather in the long living room near the large twinkling tree. Song sheets appear. I go to the piano. Seated around in chairs and on the floor, guests call out numbers of the songs they want. If the key is too high and they change it on me, I try to fake along, often failing, but nothing stops the singing.

I love this version of surround sound: the spontaneous hamming up of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” and “The Little Drummer Boy,” the variations on “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” the quieter rendering of beloved Christmas hymns, “Silent Night” always saved till last. Sometimes Charlie brings out his penny whistle or recorder. Sometimes Jo plays her flute. Now and then we also have Delana’s harp.

This is no utopia. We’ll all return very shortly to the contradictions, ironies, puzzles, and pain that mark adult life. For the long moment of this evening, however, usefulness, duty, and deadlines are held at bay while voices merge in song.

—Ann Copeland, Keeping Time

from Keeping Time, by Ann Copeland

Pressures abound today to reinforce our sense of darkness and disconnectedness on many levels. Dead ends. Final losses. As I write these words, newspapers and TV carry tales of the looting and pillaging of the National Museum of Iraq whose records and artifacts recorded the history of a civilization that began to flourish on the fertile plains of Mesopotamia more than seven thousand years ago. Links have been broken, destroyed forever.

Closer to the heart, in personal lives, there is no denying links broken, as any adult knows. A sense of disconnectedness is our human métier. A page is torn from a sacred book, a particular path of religious commitment loses its power, connections to loved ones are severed by illness, death. History, our times, our individual lives educate us to sustain only guarded optimisms, skeptical faith. And yet . . .

That “and yet” informs my efforts here and in the essays that follow. We possess the power to forge connections across time. In our blackest moments, we may read final loss. Yet the adventure of tracing connections, discovering links, rediscovering meaning can yield surprise and discovery for even the most dubious.

—Ann Copeland, Keeping Time: A Life Making Music