Lucie McKee
Chamber Music
In the music, somewhere, what happens
among the solitudes: alone, the viola is reedy,
thin, but, then, along the theme, the pulse
between the cello and the violin – suddenly, it’s
unbearable, and only the cello can leap that
first abyss when the utterly defenseless
moment is about to shatter, and the music
is about to shut down because, then, it
comes in – all the unutterable pain someone
you knew felt that you were too inchoate
to feel but hints of, although you’d
stored it away until this measure revives
and keeps it as more ache than you
ever could imagine; the violin threading it
together for you to wear as an interior
garment to replace all that you’d
not quite understood because you had to
go on impassively, or thought you did,
until you hear this theme that arranges and
rearranges all that is just bearable
along the quivering wires of your existence.
There is only a moment in there when
the violin and the viola speak before the music
pulls them away from each other to
take care of everyone and everything else.
among the solitudes: alone, the viola is reedy,
thin, but, then, along the theme, the pulse
between the cello and the violin – suddenly, it’s
unbearable, and only the cello can leap that
first abyss when the utterly defenseless
moment is about to shatter, and the music
is about to shut down because, then, it
comes in – all the unutterable pain someone
you knew felt that you were too inchoate
to feel but hints of, although you’d
stored it away until this measure revives
and keeps it as more ache than you
ever could imagine; the violin threading it
together for you to wear as an interior
garment to replace all that you’d
not quite understood because you had to
go on impassively, or thought you did,
until you hear this theme that arranges and
rearranges all that is just bearable
along the quivering wires of your existence.
There is only a moment in there when
the violin and the viola speak before the music
pulls them away from each other to
take care of everyone and everything else.
Page(s) 23
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