Music

In Albinoni
And all baroque masters
Who flourish and shake my desk
With trumpet, organ and harpsichord
With cello, flute and violin
I am taken for a moment
To a child's world
Of playfulness that escalates
Slowly toward full riot and
Honest innocents that moves
In stages to pure simplicity

In music weightless and light
That floats graceful
Through my ears
In Overtures
Of unending variation
In preludes
Of unexpected brilliance
I hear gleeful sweetness
My children's laughter
The giggles that grow
To shouts and yells

And I go on to ponder
The substance of sound
That touches me like a spirit
And moves through me
With ghostly freedom
That passes through my walls
Without hindrance and enters
Through unopened doors
In the softness of bassoon and flute
My daughters whisper
And in the shrill voice of violin
My son whistling

 

A Season

In am stuck
In the middle of this is a reluctant season
Within its heart of slowness
Its self-centered sloth
In a holding back in bashful reserve
Where the sun never shines
And the clouds hide a shy blue sky
Over trees sleeping so soundly
In self-conscious reserve
They do not dream of buds
Indeed this season
I am caught in
Is the triumph of timidity

And I too celebrate it
In my holding back for my touch now
Is uncertain reserve and I am paused
In tentative indecision for a moment
An hour
A day
A collection of days
Until there is nothing left to touch
But the starkness and realization
Of all that is missing