Shakespeare Variations
You need not compare me to a summer’s day,
you already know what it feels like to hold me in late July.
Smell my sunscreen mix with the sweetness of peaches,
hear my heart beat to the cricket symphony,
hear me catch my breath and sigh.
It doesn’t matter what kind of flower you call me.
I could be your lavender, your orchid, your tulip, your lily,
and I would still smell just as sweet as any kind of rose.
So pick me in the peak of summer darling,
I need to be the one you hold.
You’re welcome to deflower me,
drink in my perfume like you’ve been waiting all winter for me to bloom.
Shower me with the magic of the solstice,
let me be your midsummer night disaster
and we’ll ride the waves of the warm breeze to the light of the full moon.
Cello, purple, flamboyant (from Ben)
I have the best seat in the orchestra.
But unless we’re playing Wagner or Mahler I also have the worst parts.
Yet the seat never fails to make up for what I’ve lost.
Cause when concert day comes I feel like a sailor in the crows nest
The hall’s my ocean.
The conductor is the mermaid on the bow.
She leads us through the high seas, once unknown to us but now more friendly.
And when the violins open fire with blood dripping off their bows,
and the cellos paint the sunsets with pink and purple cords,
and the oboes cry like seagulls, the flutes like dolphin pods
I’m reminded of why I’m grateful to be seated in the heart of this masterpiece.
All at once flamboyant and macabre, we do everything to inspire awe.
Cause what’s the point of the music if we don’t feel it in our hearts?
When did my band director first say that all music belongs to pirates or lovers?
I’d like to think that orchestras bridge that gap and bring those two together.
For isn’t a pirate simply a lover of the high seas?
And don’t lovers simply explore an ocean’s worth of feelings?
I’ve been granted the privilege to witness it all.
From my perch I hear every bird call, see every blood and sea spray.
Feel the ocean waves threaten to topple the ship, but not today!
And that beauty, that power, that wonder, that’s the reason I stay