Tuesday [The Poem]

who stands beside me still,
nameless, indifferent
to any lost or ill
motion of mind or will,
whose pulse is mine, who goes
sleepless and is not spent?

mozart said he could hear
a symphony complete,
its changing harmonies clear
plain in his inward ear
in time without extent.
and this one, whom i greet

yet cannot name, or see
save as lights sidelong shift,
who will not answer me,
knows what i was, will be,
and all i am: beyond
times desolating drift.

in half-light i rehearse
mozarts cascading thirds.
lights lingering tones disperse.
music and thought reverse
their flow. beside dark roots
dry crickets call like birds

that morning when i came
from childhoods steady air
to love, like a blown flame,
and learned: time will reclaim
all music manifest.
wait, then, beside my chair

as time and music flow
nightward again. i trace
their questioning voices, know
little, but learn, and go
on paths of love and pain
to meet you, face to face.

[Alter Ego - Gwen Harwood]



so please please please let me, let me get what i want, lord knows it will be the first time..