In the morning, thank you, thank you

In the evening, thank you, thank you

In the middle of the day, thank you, thank you

In the deep dark night, thank you, thank you

Yeah, I’ll second that. The words are from the Sara Thomsen song “Rhapsody of Rest,” but more specifically, they were sung by my sister a few days ago at – can you believe? – the third annual Bob’s Rhubarb Lounge event, a mélange of poetry and music, stained glass and vulnerability.

Let me prance and jump around like a four-year-old for a moment. This happens at my house. I participate in it – I read poetry and add to the mix. But so many people participate in making it happen that I feel myself pushed beyond my own ego, beyond my sense of singularity. As a writer, I am embedded in the belief that I work alone. And I do work alone; we all do, to some extent. And some people become the ones who get singled out as cultural bastions, as though that’s the primary point: to be celebrated, to become famous individuals.

As I wrote two years ago, after the first Rhubarb Lounge: “I fear that any activity that happens to fall under the label ‘art’ becomes vulnerable to, shall we say, cultural kidnapping. It’s either good or bad, in some condescending, externally determined way. Art is exclusive! Only some people are ‘artists.’”

There’s a bigger picture here – a bigger, more inclusive reality. At least that has become my takeaway for the Rhubarb Lounge, the name of which emerged from a poem I read at the initial event called “The Coming of the Rhubarb”: “. . . red-green hands reaching up in/ fetal wonder,/ life emerging screaming/ a billion years of evolving . . .”

As humanity evolves, along with the rhubarb, we must step forward, into the unknown. Finally that’s the deepest nature of art, and it’s why I now find myself celebrating all the participants at the Rhubarb Lounge, including the ones who had not necessarily intended to participate until – to their own surprise – they stepped forward with something to offer. Thus my sister, Sue, shared – acapella – the song of joy and gratitude she sings to herself while walking her daughter’s family dog.

 “I sing it to the trees,” she told me, “to the grass, the sky, the world around me. It’s a meditative response. It calms me down – singing thanks and meaning it!”

And, as she found her voice, the song became all of ours. Thank you, thank you.

And I give thanks, also, to my daughter, Alison, the Stained Glass poet, who initially suggested we do a reading here when she came to visit from Paris two years ago – and has organized the event annually ever since. I also thank Alison’s good friends, Erin and Michael, who brought not only music but also lighting and other equipment that made the event possible.

All of which brings forth a big “hmmm” as I sit here by myself, writing about the event, writing about our connection with one another. All of a sudden, my sense of connectedness has returned quietly to its cocoon and once again feels like mostly an abstraction, which I can read about in the daily news. And – oh, groan – the day’s top stories are, as usual, full of war and misery. Can’t we do better than this? Where does the truth lie?

Uh oh, now I have to quote a poem I wrote several years ago (“The Truth Lies”):

Where does

the truth lie?

In the exosphere,

perhaps: in terminal darkness,

beyond oxygen, politics,

sanity and, so help me,

god?

Or does it lie

amid the cells

and secrets of

my naked bodysoul,

in the cookie jar

of preserved lies and humiliations,

bad grades and notes

from the assistant principal

on my permanent record?

Is the truth classified?

For my own good?

Is the truth a cul-de-sac

of disappointment, atheism,

shattered wanting,

told you so?

Do the authorities

have special access?

Does the truth

have a shelf life?

Do the poets

as they pan the wreckage of

civilization and their own lives

for glittering nuggets

sometimes hit the mother lode?

Who has ever told the truth?

Who has ever

not?

Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist and nationally syndicated writer. His newly released album of recorded poetry and art work, Soul Fragments, is available here: https://linktr.ee/bobkoehler

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