Music of the Spheres
If we experience the planet,
on an axis, like a record spinning,
time the needle of perception to our living,
the basic elements never changing,
the compositions forming and reforming,
rearranging.
Countless melodies recorded on the street,
or sung by stars with golden throats, each track laid down the same
in a universal studio, the royalties are paid
every time we listen, disengaged
and re-engaged, to the soundwaves that replay
time-locked singles of the rhythm
and the tone that we create --
personalities performing, presence endlessly
conducting, only changing
when the needle changes place.
Hearing most existence playing soft on chamber strings,
manifesting simply with a fullness bright and aching;
the triumphal orchestration that swallows great events,
or an overture of brass while running reckless through a field,
the wind a silent pause, the careful rest
when deciding on the next step to be taken.
The hissing fuzz, holding of breath, when the record
pauses, skips, and stops its singing.
And there are songs we’ve heard too often,
the vinyl warped, the notes who, worn, ill defined
and distant yet, find a way into our ears
like the buzzing score of summer: trumpet cars, cicadas wings,
slow morning glow, the greens of leaves.
Now left to sit a while, the needle gathers dust,
skipping over the expected, picking up instead
discordance or decay, scratches overtime engraved
upon the tracks that you and I together made.
Leaving us to wonder still, what garbled harmonies await
discovery in forgotten spaces, bargain bins:
the voices of a stranger’s parents, baritone and alto cries
of fallen cities, dropping from the repertoire,
the forgotten murmurs of a history --
Is it a thunder or rustled hum that sounds in the beginning?
Impatient for, yet hesitant
in learning to appreciate, we wait to hear what will project
when the record of the world is flipped.
