Leavings

Her flute trailed a stream of song

     We looked for long beyond

     The expectation of a final note

     That didn't come--

She walked stately off the stage

Before the song was done,

     Her rippling gown

     A floating image,

                    Then gone.

Silence lifts from sound,

          Infinitely thinned

Beyond our reach to perceive

Silver notes now hard to catch

                    As fireflies,

With ways of saying what they mean,

As if the air, at night, is precisely what it seems,

               Wetting our feet with dew--

How many stories can there be?

Too many, or too few?

The impossibility of articulating

The same phrase twice,

Precisely duplicating

Every entrance, exit,

Accidental imperfection

Argues for infinity.

Give every note its worth,

Our teachers say.

               We wish on falling stars.

 

If I've learned it correctly,

It always comes back,

A sense of standing

Close to castles in the dark,

Where moonlight settles on stones

Watered by wind in dreams;

A sense of standing

Close to water in the dark,

The air precisely what it seems--

Our echo of story and song.

August, 2011

for Susan Fries,

who taught me first