POETRY BREAK #22: "THE QUIET JOYS OF BROTHERHOOD" by Richard Farina, 1966

Albie's Note: The Quiet Joys of Brotherhood is a beautiful poem by the late, GREAT novelist/folk singer/iconoclast and genius Richard Fariña  (March 8, 1937 – April 30, 1966)  which he set musically to the public domain melody of the ancient Irish air My Lagan Love. His widow Mimi Fariña (born Margarita Mimi Baez, April 30, 1945 – July 18, 2001) sang it in 1968 on the final Richard and Mimi Fariña album Memories [a long time fave of Albie's] , two full years after Richard's untimely death in a motorcycle crash.

I loved that old album like few others, and always loved this particular poem.   I have long considered Farina the TRUE 'last of the Beats' because in many ways he was the last gasp of that strange sensibility... at once joyous and poetic yet darkly acknowledging of the "American Weirdness."

Here is Mimi's great rendition of one of Richard's true poetic classics. I am no leftie, but Brotherhood is a really good thing to sing about.

Amen.

Where gentle tides go rolling by
Along the salt-sea strand
The colors blend and roll as one
Together in the sand
And often do the winds entwine
To send their distant call
The quiet joys of brotherhood
When love is lord of all

Where oat and wheat together rise
Along the common ground
The mare and stallion light and dark
Have thunder in their sound
The rainbow sign, the blended flood
Still have my heart enthralled
The quiet joys of brotherhood
When love is lord of all

But men have come to plow the tides
The oat lies on the ground
I hear their fires in the field
They drive the stallion down
The roses bleed, both light and dark
The winds do seldom call
The running sands recall the time
When love was lord of all

 

PEACE