Monday Music - Penny Annie

Bear with me while I explain the stream of consciousness that resulted in today's post.

My wife is participating in a MacLaurinCSF book group that is discussing Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies by Marilyn Chandler McEntyre. She has been getting a lot out of the book and has been reading excerpts to me now and then. Which brings us to this morning, when over coffee, she read a passage from the book. The particular passage she read quoted another book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard. I'm very fond of that book, and hearing the quotation brought to mind a song that I wrote about fifteen years ago after reading it.

Here is the excerpt from Dillard's Pilgrim:

A rosy, complex light fills my kitchen at the end of these lengthening June days. From an explosion on a nearby star eight minutes ago, the light zips through space, particle-wave, strikes the planet, angles on the continent, and filters through a mesh of land dust: clay bits, sod bits, tiny wind-borne insects, bacteria, shreds of wing and leg, gravel dust, grits of carbon, and dried cells of grass, bark and leaves. Reddened, the light inclines into this valley over the green western mountains; it sifts between pine needles or northern slopes, and through all the mountain blackjack oak and haw, whose leaves are unclenching, one by one, and making an intricate, toothed and lobed haze. The light crosses the valley, threads through the screen on my open kitchen window, and gilds the painted wall. A plank of brightness bends from the wall and extends over the goldfish bowl on the table where I sit. The goldfish's side catches the light and bats it in my way; I've an eyeful of fish-scale and star.

Here is the song I wrote:



Penny Annie
She took a penny-
Hid it at the bottom of that tree.
She loves a mystery-
Loves to pique my curiosity.
White chalk arrows on the sidewalk
Say hidden treasure lies this way.
She’s got a childlike kind of wonder,
It’s something more than childish play.
And I’m sure to find that penny
If I look around with eyes that see like Annie.

Stillness and starlight,
Dragon helicopters in the reeds.
Earthworms and planets,
Mantis prayers and long forgotten creeds.
I can lose myself in wonder,
I can lose the time of day,
But if I ever lose the mystery
I will surely lose my way-
And the key to finding pennies
Is living life with open eyes that see like Annie.

Are you a pilgrim?
Well, I’m a pilgrim too.
Are you finding pennies?
I've found quite a few.

We can lose ourselves in wonder,
We can lose the time of day,
But if we ever lose the mystery
We will surely lose our way-
And the world’s a shiny penny
For anyone with open eyes that see like Annie.

Yes, the world’s a shiny penny
For anyone with open eyes that see like Annie.

Words & Music by Dave Burkum © Copyright 1999 by Dave Burkum (admin. by www.burkum.com).