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Simple Toil

from Simple Toil by Tim Koehn

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Epigraphs:

Memory,
native to this valley, will spread over it
like a grove, and memory will grow
into legend, legend into song, song
into sacrament. The abundance of this place,
the songs of its people and its birds,
will be health and wisdom and indwelling
light. This is no paradisal dream.
Its hardship is its reality.

- Wendell Berry, from Part 2 of "Work Song"

Then He stood up and looked at me even as the seasons might look down upon the field, and He smiled.

- Kahlil Gibran, from "Mary Magdalene", from Jesus the Son of Man

lyrics

Mary Magdalene and her basilica-­‐wrapped bones
brought a fancy fame to the village of Vézelay.
But I like to think of her in her cave of cold, wet stone,
meditating on her man all night and day,
who Gibran says looks upon her
like the Seasons look upon the fields of hay.

What work-­song started then amidst the juniper and sage,
sprouting seeds of memory folded in the soil?
Then aromatic legend came out baked by sweat and age—
it took a song to wring out the sacramental oil.
Now we remark in wonder,
blind to what went under,
“How blessed, pure, and holy”—
what might be made of only simple toil.

Sacrament is holding you and me;
Tighten up unless you want to be free
to love this dirty damn family.

credits

from Simple Toil, released February 16, 2018
Felipe Forero on cello

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about

Tim Koehn Nicosia, Cyprus

Tim Koehn, currently based in Cyprus, teaches for a living but writes and makes music any chance he gets.

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