A new song is such a terrifying angel. It appears not with honey and words, but as a spark, hair all disheveled, clothes torn.

My instinct when it arrives is to hold on for dear life. It’s too great for me, my human body almost too small to contain it.

I cannot speak, I cannot shout. How will I ever translate this invasion into definition and form, give it simplicity and emotional groundedness?

Then without warning it happens. I don’t know how or when but I begin to hear my own soul’s voice reminisce with me: about the souls, those small whispering things, of people I have known and loved, about places where I laughed and suffered, with tears and sighs. I begin to recreate passionately Ithacas I’ve lost.

The song arrives. I witness light. That maelstrom of directionless sound first unleashed to the heart is carried home.