The old man sits by the ocean, watches the waves crest.  Gnarled hands
caress a wooden flute.  He brings it to his lips cracked with age, plays
notes with consequence.

He hears no more.  He feels only the air whistling out, the vibrations
in his fingers that substitute for the sublime he once knew.  
It is a paler form of knowledge.  And so he resolves to teach,
to animate, to find eyes for unseen light.

He knows ripples, the movement of wind and water,
the shivering of cold and pleasure and
of someone moved — no, displaced, by sound.

He draws a crowd.  Lifegivers, he thinks, fertile minds
ripe for the planting.  And no two flowers that bloom
are the same.  He plays a song
whose notes spread as dandelion seed does —
flown, twirling, through the medium of air —
then taking root through the ears,
pushing into crevices,
unfurling green buds.