Why do I love Rachmaninoff’s Vocalise so much?
What has happened to me,
Overnight I’ve become an old man who weeps
For a song without words.
Is it because I’ve known the past,
Or because I know the future—
And that is a bitter knowledge to possess,
To know we will ****** each other again,
And that nothing changes
Across landscapes of madness.
Another Vocalise will have to be written,
And another me will have to suffer
The sadness of knowing,
Of hating who we are,
And of what we’re capable—
After all, there’s something tragic about music
If it exists to heal the wounds
That we ourselves inflict.