The Ballard of the Harp-Weaver Changed My Life by Pat Garcia

Hello Everyone,

It is the first Wednesday of the month, and IWSG Time. 

IWSG is a writers' support group created and led by Alex Cavanaugh. It is a big help to many of us who do not mind sharing our insecurities, our successes or giving encouragement and help to others. 

So, if you are interested and would like to join, the link below will lead you directly to us:

The Insecure Writer's Support Group 

My report: 

Rejection:

Glimmer Train: Very Short Fiction

The Ballard of the Harp-Weaver Changed My Life by Pat Garcia

I have been learning poetry by memory as long as I can remember. That’s the way the older people kept my mind busy from asking too many questions when I was little. However, I didn’t realize the role poetry would play in me discovering the power of words until I was fifteen. 

I came across the poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay, and it knocked me out. I remember crying as I read it.  Encountering this poem came at the appropriate time for me. Our church was scheduled to be the hostess for the Walker Baptist Church Convention in Georgia. My grandfather had asked me to recite a short poem for the closing program. He said a short poem because he knew he hadn’t given me much time to learn a long poem like The Creation by James Weldon Johnson. But I was so much in love with the Ballard of the Harp-Weaver that I gave it a go. It took me three days to impregnate that poem in my heart. 

The closing evening of the convention I stood before a packed sanctuary filled with expectancy as I stood before them empty-handed, no book, no paper to read from. As I begin to speak with my eyes observing the people sitting on the front rows, I knew the moment I had caught them up in the world of the tiny boy and his mother. 

I will never forget the quietness in the sanctuary as I got to the second to last verse with my sad, melancholy voice.

There sat my mother
  With the harp against her shoulder
Looking nineteen
  And not a day older,

A smile about her lips,
  And a light about her head,
And her hands in the harp-strings
  Frozen dead.

The church gasped aloud, shocked.

I paused two or three seconds to let the reality of the words sank in their hearts and then continued with the last verse.

And piled up beside her
  And toppling to the skies,
Were the clothes of a king's son,
  Just my size.

People jumped out of their seats clapping their hands. I received a standing ovation but more than that I realized the power of words spoken from the heart. 

Wishing all of you a lovely month of May. 

Shalom aleichem,

Pat Garcia

*The Ballard of the Harp-Weaver by Edna St. Vincent Millay