Rehearsal
Three hours before bringing
Beethoven’s Emperor back to life,
He sits under one spotlight
Illuminating his fingers’
Ebony and ivory path.
He breezes through Scriabin,
Rachmaninoff’s Paganini variation.
When silence seems to have suddenly
Suffused the hall, sweat from soles
Form three sets of footprints
On sheen of plywood’s subfusk,
The third where he stops to take off the drenched
Till he can be mistaken
As Michelangelo’s David.
Then he returns with chords thundering,
As though within him a cage is opening,
Releasing Originality’s angels with their notes
Fluid as Revelation, mellifluous
As Serendipity rushing suddenly so free.
Soon arpeggios trickle like rivulets
Meeting at his nose and chin. He closes his eyes,
As though he yearns for the Cosmos to open:
He imagines the river reflecting one
Lightning bolt. The thundering subsides
Into pianissimo. In his mind he follows
Something flowing, something serene within
Like pebbles dropping in water, resting
In the silence of his inner void.
He sees moonlight leading him to
The woods beyond the riverbank:
He withdraws his fingers from the keys
And opens his eyes, realizing
He could never have emptied
Himself to the river
As this moment,
When from himself he is
Totally absent.
