The Music Of Jethro Tull- -A Tribute To Ian Anderson Poem by Subhojit Kar

God's own pipers! Makers of immortal music!
You turned barren rocks into singing fountains
Such is the magic, the poignancy of your sounds.
To the indefatigable traveler ready to scale
The highest peaks of the Rock Mountain,
Albeit only through the auditory route,
And who thought in his foolishness
That he had heard them all- -
Just breezing through the hills and dales and glades
The golden-lettered names, the incontestable sounds
The searing solos and the dazzling group acts
Seemed all godsend, a divine blessing...

But then one passed out of college
was fazed by the ways of the crooked, mean world
And was bored and sad and tired...

To the clogged heart which no new age lyrics
Nor any turn-of-the century tunes can excite
To ears deafened by the cacophony of the techno-beats
To eyes blinded by the crazy antics
Of the shrieking mannequins and loud louts on stage
And the sibilant harlequins on TV,
Just when the heart had grown cold
To what was once the Ruling Passion
And when the Mind had switched off from rock
And took refuge in what it thought was stuff
More 'soothing' more 'conventional'
Just then, just then, the journeyman
Rediscovered 'You'- -

O Paradise of the Musical Cosmos
I had a fleeting visit to your Land
In my early youth- - I mean the Musicscape,
Not the actual country
However, it was more of a whistlestop tour
Without the internet, without the lyrics
And a pseudo-convent education
I was severely challenged, more like a trekker
With a bird's eye view;
Though your music still emanated
From the Rock Island hidden by mist
Like God's own orchestra
With the finest set of warbling songbirds
And the most lyrical of gurgling streams
And singsong fountains as accompaniment.

But now, when I have seen the words
That go with the sounds,
(Thanks to the Web)
It's pure Epiphany- -
Now the traveler is on his true pilgrimage
To God's own country- -
The magical land where fallow tracts
Turn into play-gardens,
Clouds sing like nightingales and thrushes
Sit on the visitor's shoulders
And sing in his ears,
The grass caresses your feet
And suddenly you are no longer walking
But flying and swimming and rolling
And crying and singing...

So take a million bows, Ian
Gratitude, love and homages
To You and your unforgettable flute
From someone hailing from the Land of Lord Krishna
The Lord I've seen only in pictures,
But you are the Living Lord of Myriad Melodies now
You have returned the rucksack back to the retired mountaineer,
The trekker on the rocky terrain resuming his quest
Now the traveler will never be tired
For your maddening genius will keep him going.