It was such a warm summer evening <br />that the music that was promised us <br />after the evening meal, called to meet <br />the open air. I wondered, would it work, <br />would the delicacy of the music’s fine woven tapestry, <br />the shaped fine wood of instruments, <br />fine sounds from strings, flute, clarinet, <br />find themselves, or lose themselves, <br />on the mown front lawn before the house, <br />under the heavens’ curve? <br /> <br />Chairs, music stands, cello’s spike <br />were settled in the grassy earth; skirts arranged; <br />stillness as the group began to hear <br />each other’s silence and the music <br />not yet played; not far away; but almost here. <br />Something complete, it seemed, <br />was in the air. <br /> <br />Music began; acquired attitudes of listening <br />settled on the audience; and then, unannounced, <br />magic descended. Someone <br />who knew life so intimately, so completely, <br />who had passed through it even while <br />they lived it, was telling me in my inner ear <br />what life was, is, all about; in detail – <br />it’s like this; and this; this sweetness, <br />that sweetness; this sadness, that sadness; <br />sweetness that’s sad, sadness that is sweet; <br />all held like a gentle fountain - bubbling continuous, <br />yet gloriously and joyously, ever fresh; <br />to be welcomed, not to be judged or resisted, <br />(the hearing of it was way beyond such things) <br />for it held - listening to it now afresh, it holds - <br />all that may be known, that may be lived; this is life itself; <br />this, this is simply, how it is... <br /> <br />The sound is with me now; music told me; <br />this is how it is.<br /><br />Michael Shepherd<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/0406-the-summer-evening-music-that-never-ended/
