(glass chime image courtesy of windchimecentral.com)

Late last summer, our local Rite-Aid had a special on wind chimes. These were the very chimes I had been eyeing since early spring when they were going to twenty to thirty dollars a piece.Glass and metal with a lovely peacock on the main plate that would hang from the shepherd’s hook in the back yard.

But now, they were going two for twenty dollars.

I’m not a chime-ologist, but it seemed like a buyers market, so I took two sets of wind chimes and I hung these in our day lily patch at Hankins Ranch.

Maybe I should have taken those wind chimes down before snow started to fly in southern Indiana, but as our winters are generally cold, without much snow, I thought that they would be okay.

I like the sound of chimes, don’t you? I mean. . .very little is required to make them work. A breeze.

That’s it.

Music.

Clearing the lily patch for spring, I noted one of the sets of chimes was in terrible shape. The “chime-y” parts that hang downward from the decorative plate were hopelessly tangled. The pretty, glass “chime-y” parts were cracked or broken. I could see the pieces glittering in the dirt below my feet.

Since the other set of chimes were not broken, I thought to discard the broken set. And then, fingering the tangled strings and feeling the smoothness of the metal rods that used to make music last season, I thought again.

Ah, what to do. . .well. . .I’m a poet, so the first thing that I knew to do was to take in the whole of the situation. Perhaps a haiku:

The tangled wind chimes

hang hopelessly entangled,

woefully windblown.

The poetic moment passing, I set to work on untangling the wind chimes.

And then I saw what I believed to be the crux of the problem.

The biggest glass piece in the chimes is the part that dangles the lowest from the set. In my limited understanding of chimes, I would call this “the clapper.” It hangs in a sort of plumb line to catch the breeze that moves the glass piece in order to make the other elements. . .chime. It had broken free from the set.

And it lay in the dirt. Unable to do that thing it was meant to do. Catch the breeze as it passes, take it in, and send it to the other chimes. Without a “clapper” the whole set of chimes is left to its own devices.

Tangles happen.

They seem hopeless.

The music suffers.

And the more one might pull on the tangled mess, the tighter the whole thing becomes. To set things right requires a methodical releasing of the minor tangles to get to the larger ones. But, I am not a chime-ologist.

I am a poet. I want to be a “clapper.”

Perhaps a cinquain would do:

Wind chimes,

hanging silent

remembering breezes

that once swept the set to singing.

Summer.

I think we have lost our “clappers” in the classroom. I see it at the beginning of a school year in Room 407. A number of hopelessly tangled chimes walking into the room. Tangled in backpack straps, the parts that had made them glitter once have been left behind in a sandbox somewhere and traded in for quiet desperation.

They have music inside of them. But they have lost their “clapper.”

I’ll say that I see this often at the beginning of the year because when we watch ANGUS (based on Chris Crutcher’s short story from ATHLETIC SHORTS, “A Brief Moment in the Life of Angus Bethune,” I watch students roll their eyes when Angus gets the obligatory, Hollywood “slow clap” at the end. Our students have seen this motif in films a hundred times. They are as desensitized to this outpouring of affirmation as they might be to the horror they see in the latest slasher flick.

And what a shame.

August Pullman, the main character in R. J. Palacio’s WONDER says, “There should be a rule that every person receive a standing ovation at least once in their lives.”

In order to make this a reality, we often have to be “the clapper” for our students, for our learning communities.

As the lead learner:

We are breeze keepers.

We go first.

We bring in the music of our subject to share with our students. We ask them to take notes.

We hang back when everyone has left the building. Making notes.

We are aware of breezes and what they offer.

We listen for the music that is made when the breeze of inspiration moves through the room.

We guard against the brutality of hails stones.

We recognize the benefit of a light shower every now and then.

We weather storms.

And. . .we recognize the distinct sound of music coming from the chimes that need only a little assistance here and there. Freshly-polished chimes that hang in ornate gardens of nurture, opportunity, and promise.

And. . .we hear the music that could be in the broken.

The tangled.

One that might hang decoratively in a place where little else may grow.

Where cool, inviting breezes seldom blow.

Those left without “clappers.”

After working with the strings a little, I was able to release most of the chimes in the set. I retied the clapper. But the strings that were to attach to the main plate were so frayed, I knew they would not last the next season.

What to do. Maybe a couplet:

Even when my strings are frayed,

from above my heart’s music’s made.

I kept all of the original pieces to the chime set that were not broken beyond repair. I will find stronger line and retie the metal chimes to the main plate. What’s more, I will make a trip to the craft store to add some elements to the chime set that were not there before.

Don’t we change the value of the students that come into our learning communities just this way? Taking a look to see where the tangles originate. And with some gentle pulling and nudging here and there, we see our way free to get back to the potential of the music still inside.

Tangled chimes do not play. They hang.

And they remember.

And they long.

Chimes–like love–simply are. Their name is what they do.

I find this wonderfully poetic.

The gentle breeze and the gentle response of a “clapper” sets the whole thing  in motion. And sets the whole thing to music. From outside the room it might sound like cacophony, but to the “clapper” it sounds like the very music of all that is good in the world.

An untangled chime can do what it was meant to do.

And chimes want to do this.

Hang a set of chimes this weekend from a shepherd’s hook. They know what to do. They need very little coaching.

But they do need to be watched. And maintained.

Oh. . .and always, they need to know that someone is listening.

Perhaps something philosophical here:

If wind chimes ring and no one there to hear them, what becomes of the song?

If you have a set of chimes in the room that are not playing these days, check the “clapper.” Look at the ties. They still bind.

Connections made today are music played into tomorrow.

Be a breeze keeper.

Clap when necessary.

Rise.

Chime.