The Pianist Replied
Poemata LXVII
When I play, I find a way
to say what can't be spoken
All this I see with fingers poised
before the silence broken
By chord so struck is left again
to languidly repose
In the silence song is born
So everybody knows
What cheapness is a tone to me
How dear is now its absence
Just before the motion goes
The silence is a labyrinth
The rhythm comes a minotaur
And drives the hammer down
But in the quiet still unfolds
The spirit of the sound
The words that have no consonants
The mellifluous cry
He said his guitar gently weeps
The keybed must then sigh
To say what can't be understood
To speak in riddles dark
But for player, hand upraised
To strike and hit his mark
And think in colors sight unseen
Whose feelings are but air
And string them long about the place
Till something's really there
And eyes and ears must upon up
Perhaps an ahh or gasp
That rising, falling zephyrs come
To fall into their grasp;
Yes, grow great you diaphragms
And sunder through the sky!
The speaker speaks! He bellows out
That mellifluous cry -- !
Stomping through the atmosphere!
But coming to a stop...
Waiting as if a traffic light
Signals the bass to drop!
Then a curling rush must wash
Across a starry shore
Sudden as it washes up
It dies away once more;
But, ah, I'm quite before myself
I sit here quite appoise
The silence still unbroken yet
By any music's noise.