It’s a snapshot, except <br />before the age of the camera <br />yet more of a decisive moment <br />than any posed painting <br /> <br />as any photographer, <br />lighting director, would see, <br />he’s next to you, could be <br />round about the fifth row back <br />of the stalls; looking so straight ahead <br />that it doesn’t seem to be <br />the stage box; and it must surely be <br />a grand theatre, the lighting’s strong <br /> <br />on his white neck-stock, <br />his powdered hair, even catching <br />the lower white of his focussed eye; <br />he all there, he’s all here, and <br />attentive as a critic; the opera, <br />as it surely is, is playing and engages <br />all his faculties; and yet <br /> <br />there’s an appreciation <br />holding his lips far from the <br />childish joke, the poverty, the family deaths, <br />or even from the unimaginable creation <br />of music that speaks of something <br />deep in human hearts, speaks <br />of something beyond the human heart. <br /> <br />He’s listening to the music <br />as if he’d never heard it before yet <br />you can see it’s all inside him, too - <br />whatever ‘inside’ could mean <br />to genius; <br /> <br />it’s Mozart, there beside you <br />as you sketch him, as the <br />music you’re not watching <br />as you watch him and your pencil <br />x-rays your very soul and <br />finds it wholly good. <br /> <br />So I’d like to thank him <br />in his celebration, our celebration, <br />for telling me just what it’s like <br />to be told in music <br />what life’s about, and <br />more.<br /><br />Michael Shepherd<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/opera-dei-mozart-to-the-life/
