I LISTEN for Returning Feet. In the early 1970’s I was part of a music duo who played and sang in coffeehouse settings for grocery money. In 1971 we won the annual all university talent show at Marquette University with a medley of songs. I had composed music for the following poem below by JRR Tolkien as part of that medley. As I age, I hear the music still settle in my heart, my mind, and my soul as its meaning now becomes truly relevant to my life.
“I sit beside the fire and think of all that I have seen, of meadow-flowers and butterflies in summers that have been; Of yellow leaves and gossamer in autumns that there were, with morning mist and silver sun and wind upon my hair. I sit beside the fire and think of how the world will be when winter comes without a spring that I shall ever see.
For still there are so many things that I have never seen: in every wood in every spring there is a different green. I sit beside the fire and think of people long ago, and people who will see a world that I shall never know. But all the while I sit and think of times there were before, I listen for returning feet and voices at the door.”