Merely Poets are a duo, one of whom sings in our choir. The Mere is from Meersbrook and the -ly from Heeley, (for foreigners, the former is our little patch of Sheffield and Heeley is the patch next door) so perhaps it’s really Meerley … hey, that rhymes!
Anyway, Linda and Cherry have been writing Poems to Go, on any subject requested, and Linda has produced this lovely tribute to the choir..
Merely Voices
for Liz Nicholas and Carfield Community Choir
A voice can be a whisper in the night
A murmur of intriguing titbits on the bus
An angry joust of hot opinions
Or a demanding question -rise and fall,
But in our neighbourhood, in our school hall
We warm our voices in their fullest ranges
We stretch our voices and our knees,
We form a circle of our highs, our lows
We sing in tongues from many lands, some understood,
We sing in rounds, for we’re not squares.
And then our MD brings our glory out-
With wit of her arrangements
The beauty of our four or even six parts
And we tell stories with our harmonies,
And sing the world, and each of us to rights.
I’m not going to analyse it to death, but I particularly love “We form a circle of our highs, our lows” and “sing the world, and each of us to rights” which capture the healing quality of singing with others.