The Peacock 536

 "At the university.  I was studying library sciences at UBC and her twin sons were each doing their masters, one in neurobiology, the other in physics.  With two other guys they formed a band with Priscilla, who had been at the vanguard previously on the punk scene in the seventies.  But then she got married, had her sons, and got a regular job in early childhood education.  As if there were many parents out there, knowing her resume, would be willing to trust her with their small kids.  But Priscilla was amazing, amazingly responsible, amazingly kind, amazingly disciplined and amazingly creative, amazingly passionate.  And what a voice.  I said Patti Smith meets Nina Hagen.  And the lyrics, the poetry that she sang,  Here are a couple of her lines", and Sarah, who has quite an impressive soprano voice, begins to sing,

"we are the trees,

We are the forest,

We are the stones clustered in the dirt, We are the river, flowing underneath the roots,

we are the rain and the mist

We are the fire and the blood and the smoke

 We are the black rage

that pulses and screams and sings and howls and roars through the bones of Mother Earth

We are the scream, we are the song, we are the howl, we are the roar,

we are the cyclone, we are the hurricane, the typhoon 

 we are the destruction and the rage and the joy.

we are the destruction and the rage and the joy

we are the destruction and the rage and the joy...

Rebirth, rebirth, rebirth, rebirth...

We are the midwives, and we are the child and we are the mother and we are the blood

 we are the fire, we are the water, the song and the rage

 the silence of the dead.

 the silence of death.

the silence of death,

the silence of death.

we are the song and we are the love that throbs and quivers, we are the eternal serpent Leviathan that pulses and lunges from the depths of the boiling sea.

From the chaos,

 the foundation of our dreams and nights of silent waiting ,

nights of silent dread for the coming of the one, 

for the shining, for the new dawn blazing

 and we are the horizon, we are the light and we are the river that runs through our dreams,

through the roots of the trees that anchor the earth to the bones of our mother the Earth

We will arise, with trees and the birds and the wolves

because we are the song of the ravens the cry of the eagles that prophesy against the destruction

 we are the tender shoot and the fragile leaf emerging from the black squalor,

 the tree of life whose fruit will nourish, whose leaves will heal and give shade from the scorching embrace of the benevolent sun

Because we are the night. we are the day.  The new day that will always be  dawning in the midst of the night 

the impregnable night of our toxic destruction.

rebirth, rebirth, rebirth, rebirth."

"she sang that for a benefit for the protests protecting old growth forests.

"But she was amazing.  And she would visit the campus to meet and practice with her sons, because they were already setting themselves in motion and this time the world was ready for them."