Strum of the Gusli

The instrument on my knees adds singular notes to blend with the song of birds, brook and whispering leaf. I call to the shifting forest shadows and they sing back to me of the passing faun, the patient spider and a secret cache of honey. But the instrument can also produce a throbbing pulse, a strumming cadence to match the heartbeat of the canyon, with the almost silent power of the jutting cliff and the shrieking caress of the waving fern. My fingers, less nimble sure than in long decades past, evoke the sounds of nature and communicate by prayer, thoughts I cannot voice. I ponder, though, that perchance it is nature that plays at a Gusli like lute in the heavens, for does not every culture and tribe have an instrument both simple and profound that combines the pulse of quite passion and the melody of imagination? Within God’s lyric poem what is the instrument; this box of polished wood and strings, this wandering merchant and entertainer, or the forest and land of Mother Earth?

I am a Gusari. I am one who plays the Gusli. That is everything, and nothing. This mark is not a pendant that I can display nor coin that I can trade, though I am certainly a merchant. It is not a title nor position, but Princes listen to my counsel and entrust me with messages of state. I am not an actor not trevere’, but I sing, and tell stories with magic effect and moral design. I am a stranger from afar but am asked to speak to simple problems in many lands. I have the gift of absolute freedom and the curse of the prophets. I did not ask for this cloak. I will wear it ’till I die. Listen to my song.