Twenty-One

In 1989 my wife Diana and I had been married twenty-one years. We had met in high school and wed at age twenty. After two decades we had grown to a family of five with the addition of three children: a daughter in 1970, a son in 1976, and another son in 1987.

As part of our anniversary celebration I crafted a poem. It is so minimal as to be almost in code, but the chronology was ours. It was our own not-so-secret itinerary of twenty-one years.

Twenty-One

Two. One.

San Antonio,

Where we sketched the melody.

Who would have guessed?

Then? Emporia.

Now we are one.

Two. One.

Two in step.

A kind of dance, just we

Two.

Three. Four.

And then five. Amazing!

Sheboygan.

Amazing Zweibrücken.

Twenty-one years, stepping

In time.

Who would believe it?

I can give you a lyric.

The rhyme is clear too.

But I own no rhythm:

The rhythm is you.

Two years later, in 1991, Diana died during an asthma attack. A lifelong medical condition had suddenly turned vicious.

On August 22, 2012, another twenty-one years will have passed. It will be a sadder anniversary, marking the event of her death. In two decades I have moved on with my life, as one must. But I have never forgotten the two decades of joy Diana and I had together.

Twenty-One, Again

Two. One.

A decade, then another,

And one more year.

Who would have guessed?

Then? Well, that was

When the world ended,

Came crashing down.

Two became One.

Dance halted, music stopped.

And then—one life went on.

Twenty-one years, again,

Raced by.

Who would believe it?

Yet my empty arms

Still hold you,

And my aching heart

Still loves you.

Twenty-one then, twenty-one now,

But never time enough.

Singing Together

Ten years ago my partner, Sam Troxal, conceived the idea to start a men’s chorus in Bloomington, Indiana. This year the resulting Quarryland Men’s Chorus celebrated its tenth season by premiering a commissioned work, Will and Testament, by composer Greg Gilpin, at its spring concert at First United Church. The chorus followed that with its first-ever performance at the GALA Choruses Festival 2012 in Denver, Colorado, in July. The new commission was part of their festival set. A clip from Will and Testament, sung at the sendoff concert in June, can be heard on YouTube, along with other tidbits of performances and rehearsals.

GALA was a signature event for the ten-year-old chorus. More than six thousand performers and others from more than 250 gay, lesbian, and ally choruses crowded into the mile-high city for four and a half days of sheer magic—the magic of singing together. Choruses ranged from a handful of singers to well over a hundred voices. Overlapping strands in three, sometimes four, concert halls made it impossible to hear every chorus. But the sounds were incredible, by turns funny and moving.

The power of communal song was never more evident than in this gathering—not a competition, but a celebration. A celebration of our collective strength as gay men and lesbians and our friends, our collective voices as singers and supporters, and our collective humanity, having gathered for the most positive of all artistic endeavors: singing together.

Personally, one of the most moving and energizing aspects of the festival was the inclusion of youth choruses. Some forty years ago, when I was a beginning teacher in a Wisconsin junior high school, we used to troop all of the students into the auditorium from time to time for what we referred to as a “community sing.” It was an opportunity for students to learn proper audience behavior, of course. But most of all it was an opportunity for all of us—students, teachers, and administrators—to sing together.

This occurred before the assault on the arts began to rob schools of art, music, and theater programs; before the energy crisis led to the disastrous decision to convert the school’s WPA-era auditorium into a cafeteria; before the more recent ill-conceived advance of test, test, test ideology that today overwhelms and often edges out good teaching in all subjects and the arts writ large, in particular.

Recently I glimpsed that positive power of communal singing in a group I discovered on YouTube: Only Boys Aloud. This 133-voice chorus composed of Welsh lads, ages 14 to 19, is mind-blowingly inspiring. One can only hope that educators here, across the United States, can rediscover the positive power for community building, cooperation, collaboration, and learning of singing together.