Early Winter By the Fire
He said the only music he could hear
anymore was the music of stillness.
He told himself it was nothing to fear,
that stillness could be the ultimate dance
he was hearing himself summoned to score.
This was a different kind of melody
than any he had ever known before.
It drifted to a stop. It lurched, changed key,
turned to something like breath where there should be
a cluster of notes. Here, for instance, just
as the passage is about to break free
there is nothing, not even silence. Lost
air, stoppage, notes that have gone so far past
motion they stir only in memory.