On Monday, March 17, it looks like I’ll have the opportunity to sing three songs in the café of Minard in Ghent.  The not-sureness is since Hanna, the MC, is on vacation and not accessing her e-mails.  Fingers crossed.

I want to exude love onstage.  Sure, I’d like to hit all the right notes and words, but that’s secondary.  If I touch the audience in song number one, can there be a cumulative effect as I sing two and three?  I wonder.

Yesterday three songs exploded nicely in my head.  They’ve resided there for months and years.  The first is love of a place, the second love of a person, the third love of an activity.  Different destinations … all love.

I don’t know any of these.  And I’m fine with that.  A lot can be accomplished in eight weeks.

The first one is Bonny Portmore.  It’s a castle surrounded by trees, especially one – the ornament tree.  And it all disappears.  A song of lost love.

All the birds in the forest they bitterly weep
Saying “Where shall we shelter, where shall we sleep?”
For the Oak and the Ash, they are all cutten down
And the walls of Bonny Portmore are all down to the ground

Number two is You Can Close Your Eyes.  Love as gentle and sweet, an adoration of the beloved one.  Time stands still in the presence of the other.

So close your eyes
You can close your eyes, it’s all right
I don’t know no love songs
And I can’t sing the blues anymore
But I can sing this song
And you can sing this song when I’m gone

And then there’s If It Be Your Will, a prayer to the Divine.  Something you love doing … Will it continue or will it end?  There will eventually be a last time when I sing.  Please, may it be a long way off.

If it be your will
That a voice be true
From this broken hill
I will sing to you

From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing

***

I have a lot to look forward to