Hearth and fire
A Gordon Bok song just came up in iTunes. I first heard it on a Heather Rose Jones tape, one of the first filk albums I bought; apparently the only version I currently have is the snippet from the Rise Up Singing teaching CDs. If you don't know it, you can get some sense of the tune from the only version the iTunes Music Store has (though it's not my favorite version): "Hearth and Fire." First verse and chorus:
Hearth and fire be ours tonight
And all the dark outside,
Fair the night, and kind on you
Wherever you may bide.
And I'll be the sun upon your head,
The wind about your face;
My love upon the path you tread
And upon your wanderings, peace.
Which reminds me roundaboutly of another Bok song, also available in a non-Bok version at the iTMS: "Turning Toward the Morning." Ed Blachman once quoted this to me in SWAPA long ago, possibly in response to my writing about my mother's death, and I found it comforting even before I learned the tune.
Oh, my Joanie, don't you know
That the stars are swinging slow
And the seas are rolling easy, as they did so long ago
If I had a thing to give you, I would tell you one more time
That the world is always turning toward the morning.
It ain't much, but it's what I've got.
Thanks to Arthur E, btw, for providing much-needed hugs earlier.