The German Band

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Title:     The German Band
Author: John Presland [More Titles by Presland]

When I was a little child
And lived very near the sky,
A German band was wonderful music
That could almost make me cry.

It was to me of a beauty
That I could not understand,
Though I dimly guessed at sorrow and joy
In a grown-up distant land.

All that I know with the years,
Much that I never shall know,
Was in my heart when the music came
In such guise, years ago.

And now when on Friday mornings
I hear my own child run,
When the German band in the street starts playing,
The wonder is never done;

The wonder at ways that our spirit
May take for itself to rise,
How a puddle may be a silver lake,
And a chimney touch the skies.

All the forms through which spirit
Yearns and strives to be known
Are only a little greater or less,
For great is the Spirit alone.

[The end]
John Presland's poem: German Band

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