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| Stories for the telling Storyteller, author & editor Teller of tales in the oral tradition Writer of poetry, short stories and stories for younger children. Mabel Kaplan ABN 69 589 421 033 Tel. 61+8+9342 7150 email: [email protected] 54 Hudson Avenue GIRRAWHEEN WA 6064 Australia Teller of traditional, sacred, contemporary and personal stories. Interactive sessions with children and adults. Schools, libraries, playgroups, after-school care Special programmes for Secondary Schools, Guides, Scouts and similar groups, Oral histories (group, family and/or individual) recorded and transcribed. Workshop/retreat facilitator & guest speaker Special programmes for Seniors Groups, Adult Day Care, Hostel and Nursing Homes AVAILABILITY: Day and evening |
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| Last update on 14 January, 2004 |
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| A TREE TELLING OF ORPHEUS (excerpt) by Denise Levertov .... But the music! The music reached us. Clumsily, stumbling over our own roots, rustling our leaves in answer, we moved, we followed. All day we followed, up hill and down. We learned to dance, for he would stop, where the ground was flat, and words he said taught us to leap and to wind in and out around one another in figures the lyre's measure designed. The singer laughed till he wept to see us, he was so glad. At sunset we came to this place I stand in, this knoll with its ancient grove that was bare grass then. In the last light of that day his song became farewell. He stilled our longing. He sang our sun-dried roots back into earth, watered them: all-night rain of music so quiet we could almost not hear it in the moonless dark. By dawn he was gone. We have stood here since, in our new life. We have waited. He does not return. It is said he made his earth-journey, and lost what he sought. It is said they felled him and cut up his limbs for firewood. And it is said his head still sang and was swept out to sea singing. Perhaps he will not return. But what we have lived comes back to us. We see more. We feel, as our rings increase, something that lifts our branches, that stretches our furthest leaf-tips further. The wind, the birds, do not sound poorer but clearer, recalling our agony, and the way we danced. The music! |
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