Poor Viktor Hartmann!
All that remained of his towering soul
were visions pressed on to paper
hanging in a St. Petersburg gallery.
Mussorgsky advanced his lumbering frame
along the gallery halls
searching for his lost friend.
Sonic images formed in the composer’s mind
singing replicas of Hartmann’s icons:
An old castle,
Children quarreling,
An ox resisting the weight of its cart,
The Great Gate of Kiev.
Mussorgsky’s notes sound and vanish
as ephemeral as life itself -
passing into the ether only to live anew
with each successive performance.
Viktor lives!
*October, 2006
Included in Unity Tree - Collected poems
pub. CreateSpace - Amazon.com