Once more, painfully, he lifts his arms
And lets them fall as if uncertain about tomorrow.
How do the fingers remember, the feet pedaling,
Crossing one over the other, keys and stops,
Hoarse alto chuff, bass bravado, thin flutings?
Small and weightless, the abbey’s organist,
The skin on his skull so thin the sutures show
The sacrifice in his heart and in his soul’s eye.

This morning a beaded dragonfly landed on my lip;
I sat at my desk and dreamed of a garden in Rome,
A dream I hoard greedily like a tiny man.
My nerves trilled minutely, too deeply fed.
I wish I had learned to play the Requiem more generously,
A lucent fugue exalting the heart above its wildness.