For Layne

 

For Layne     

Taka, taka Doom, taka Doom!
The woman of ancient times throws her head back,
transported by her drum.
Doom taka Doom!
“Rhythm shapes matter,” the scientists say.
Priestesses already knew!
Cybele holds her drum and smiles.
Play, Layne, Play!
Create the world anew each day!
The drummer women of old
never relinquished their power
to the conquering barbaric hoards,
power amassed as millennia of music.
Play on, Layne, play on!
Doom taka Doom, taka Doom!
Watch us now, and leave us, Layne,
with this one great legacy,
the ritual rhythm of the drum.
As the Goddesses of old revive and renew,
so do you, so do you!



Annelinde Metzner
October 31, 2013


Layne Redmond (1952 to 2013) was a great teacher of the frame drum, and author of “When the Drummers Were Women, A Spiritual History of Rhythm.”   She passed through the veil in 2013 in Asheville, North Carolina.

Layne Redmond with her tambourine

Layne with frame drum

The Earthen Cloak

 

 

 

Each afternoon, the storms come in,
    first the mysterious rumble from far away,
    then the closer crash,
    until each day ends in a swirl of thunder, mist and rain.
The Appalachian forest, the rain forest,
    loves this daily soaking, Her element.
Mushrooms are abundant,
    spiderwebs glisten with raindrop jewels.
I am blessed with a Quaker friend,
    guardian of the forest,
    who patiently and delightedly walks me
    uphill in the wet leaf mulch,
    among the trees,
    from grave to grave.
These are the burial sites of the self-determined few,
    the ones who find the right bush, the right tree,
    taking time to warm to the chosen spot
    years before they go.
How life continues here,
    how it goes on!
A potter's grave, trimmed with pot-lids of all colors.
A painter's grave, happy to rest in beauty for all time.
A writer's grave, poems etched in the marker stone.
I sit at the stone fire circle
    as the sunbeams shine through the leaves.
A sacred ground, a blessed place,
    made of you and me,
    made of all of us. 

 

Annelinde Metzner

August 12, 2022