Requiem

The first notes are sound, but then it

starts snaking, starts to take shape.

A sweep of viola between the starverses

before flat, twinkling, blackness, pure

breadth. Every movement is perceptible:

thoughts inhabit the rushing trails

of asteroids in an indecipherable space –

a space I can’t say where it is made.

Then the vessel uncouples: a linking hose

unclipped and it is set free to float and

wander inside a fusion of creation, where

every latent spirit is beheld in its awe.

But my father, my father, it always comes back

to my father, to the creep of his soaring tenor.

When notes are held or left, vibrating,

there seem to be squeezing motions, but

nothing is forced, it comes of its own accord.

The force seems like it’s moving from

downwards up, still whirlwind though,

not completely inchoate, or savage. But

there is a sense that something is settled

eventually, and it is, for after some time

the matter is finally ready, a solitary tear

hangs pendant on the ledge of my eye lash,

hanging, hanging - plop - before it drops.

After the last note, I notice the man one

seat in front: His glossy eyes make

a flimsy wisp of this odyssey of grief. They

stifle it and it looks like nothing to no one.

Just another grey head at the Brahms.

You would never know.