Robert D. Valerio
Grace-notes for Chopin
Outside a hollow wind drives yellow leaves,
or none, across october pavements;
it is one of those sensuously rainy sundays
when nothing happens but everything feels
timeless and extremely linked, or, as he put it,
senza tempo e legatissimo.
Functional ornamentation the critics call it;
I see what they mean: inside these violet flowers
are clanking pistons, driven levers.
His trills are wasps drowning in cognac,
his arpeggios always twisted, but he could build
suspension bridges out of octaves, whip silk into iron.
Others harnessed water, steam; he harnessed the breathlessness
of candlelit salons, the boredom of ladies
with whalebone exoskeletons. When others were hanging up
their washing, he was draping cliffs with lace.
I love the way he proved that grey is a colour,
how certain nocturnes don’t end.
Page(s) 53
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