Standing Straight

Cypress Garden Boat Jigsaw Puzzle
Here is a shot from another one of my favorite places, Cypress Gardens near Charleston, SC. This image is in my fine art gallery and can be seen (along a with a few hundred others!) at C. McPherson Fine Art I chose it for your puzzle tonight to segue into Briana Bennett's delightful poem, titled "Standing Tall" (like those trees).

Standing straight,
Hands on bells,
All is quiet,
There’s excitement in the air.
The beat is tapped,
It’s very fast,
The stick goes down,
Our favorite song has now begun.
I wait my turn,
I will play soon.
I ring my bell,
And all is going well.
The base is slow,
The treble fast,
What do we do?
We’re heading for a wreck!
We all look up,
The stick is there,
Tapping the beat,
Our director leads us through!
The end is near,
We’ve lost all fear,
Of messing up,
For the song is done with a shake, mart, mallet.
There’s not a sound,
Then we all laugh,
The people clap,
We love to play Green Blade!

My heart swells with pride and gratitude to realize that I have touched a child's life in a such a meaningful way that she would want to spontaneously write about it. I actually cried when I first read it! So you don't have to search back through the archives to see the JoyBell Ringers' brilliant performance of the afore mentioned "Green Blade," here is the link to the video.