The monsoon cloud swooped low
to **** her
and the night seemed to wear
the darkest cloak

Three miles down south
she had gone to the weekly haat
for half a litre of earth oil
thru mud as thick as her desire
for a small glow in her thatched hut

When she reached the stream
she paused on the brink
and then like an added note
to the music of rain
her swan little frame
glided to the other bank

The wind was shivering
but she was warm in the dream of
one small light in her home
to **** the demon of dark

its your pulse, the beat of your heart
humbly in the background

the words of your poems
keeping time with your song

the pulsar of your daily orbit
as you journey around the Sun

its your willingness to live
and sing, despite all the pain.

The little girl
wearing a Navy blue dress
with a white collar
and black patton shoes
holds a red
helium balloon
as she walks down a path of clouds
through the vast wilderness
of space and time
representing life on overtime
a second home on a lake
a souring career
living with a man she is married to
but doesn't love anymore
and may never have
sings the song
"Twinkle Twinkle , Little Star"
and she is wondering
just how far

you search for black and white
and in the end its all grey

you have no ultimate idea of your own
all is a shared story

intimacy is not hidden
its varied fruits do not stay in the dark

Gifted another days light
to weave dreams for the night
I will meet you there
betwixt love and regret
where fear worms its way in
to clip the wings of the Dove
filling your ear with lies
Impotent in the end
as all nightmares wane
and die an eternal death.

There we were at the beginning of the world
A forest
redwood
bay laurel
A watercourse chiseled
into the limestone of that ridge
opening outward
to the west and setting sun

We were almost under water
through miles, through layers of green

We sat together
listening
as the alto recorder in my hand
played on its own!

A tune that called
a mahogany-voiced bird
to harmonize
A tune
that gentled the sun into the sea.
A tune
that wove together
every instant
of the days we had yet to live

Whispered theme
of my youth and middle age.
Now
pacing my reluctant
and uncertain steps
into old age.

But who needs old age?
I sure as hell
don't.

Always the golden child
the fearless one.
Destined to live forever.
That was me.

And music -
this concierto.
Music saved my life
every day.

There's nothing you can say
about music.
It eludes the weak grasp
of language.

But I lie.
Let me try.

It is
the language of emotion
the time keeper.

Bounded and constrained
by the beat
plodding, perhaps,
yet truly free of all that
and, at the end,
filled with the last breath
of eternity.

The cello
mother of music
sings peacefully
from the eye of the storm

A peace purchased
at the price of certitude

Piano provides counterpoint
restrained
elegant
its curtains of sound
dream their own dreams

and a longing violin
makes love to
the air itself

We march deliberately
to this tempo
stepping in time
to the sweet
and terrifying strains
of our own mortality

The composer
died
at thirty one years.
Why - how
have I lived so long?

Perhaps
to hear this music as if for
the first time
and so share it
with the sky.