by Jonel Abellanosa
Beethoven knew my life
Would take this turn and slow,
Seeing me leaning for hours
Watching window panes turn
White from yellow, then gray,
Listening again and again
To how he emptied the music
Of its vast and endless longings.
He waited for night’s sacramental
Wafer to appear in the window,
Its full light on the piano.
He had become deaf, yet how
Clearly he heard it hold, the way
It asked him to be on the balcony
As it drifted in the cold.
That was when his sonata
Slowed, diminished notes
Bridging centuries, finding me
Through the wish wormhole.
Stars are now lonelier together,
The wind spreading a promise of net
It won’t keep. Silence doesn’t mean
Cicadas have stopped singing,
City lights keeping vigil growing
Fewer, fewer with sonata ending.
Gravity is the Earth’s tongue.
I am the elevated host,
Consecrated for the pavement’s
Yearn for communion.
Category: Poetry