I once loved a passage in a work so desperately
I only heard the work in relation to the part
Which stood alone (I thought, for me)—
A space in the whole leaving room for my whole heart
To grieve for a beauty too brief
To complete the building of any belief,
Or anything I might use to build a religion;
But like a worshiper at the end of each day
I listened, my whole mind pleasantly far away.
I didn’t pay attention to the rest of the song,
Waiting for only this one part:
A divine melody, a mystery—
Like loves which hurt more the more moral and upright my heart.
Did the composer know this gem (never repeated in the piece elsewhere)
Would be the soul of the entire piece? And that I
Listened inside all its other music for it—
Inside the shadow of its brown piano—
A pause, there! that first, second, now that third note? Love? Why?