And why
not? After all, it’s not the essays and manifestos that bare our souls.
Those reveal our minds, our intellect. For the more romantic inclination, we
must often look elsewhere. And where else do we reveal as much of ourselves as
in our songs? Not the mass-produced drivel that all too often pollutes the
airwaves, but true songs, blessed with meter and rhyme. Our lyrical poems.
These are the purest expressions of our mind, more direct and more transcendant
than our prose could ever hope to be.
It is with this notion in mind that I direct your attention
to the lyrical poem “The Green Hills of Earth”. A song of the future. A song of
space travel. A song, above all else, of our own dear Earth. Most people
familiar with it will most likely have come across it in a short story of the
same name, written by Robert A. Heinlein.
It is the story of Rhysling, “the Blind Singer of the
Spaceways”, whom Heinlein presents as the composer of the work in question. At
this point I feel that I should tell you that it is not without reason that
SFWA’s annual poetry award is called the Rhysling Award, in honour of the
character that Heinlein made up to be great bard of his future history.
