Maestoso

Brahm's "Maestoso" in the hands of Grimaud
Drift down in sheets against a Hebridean sky.

Sudden warm breath above a cold swaying sea
Impinges a moment's annoyance; violation,

Daring to slip a feather onto stony anvil;
Her fingers graze across a sandpapery mane

Seeping her softness into the saline crust
Of the sepulchre of the equine malcontent.

7 February, 2015

*"Maestoso" is the first movement of Brahm's 1st Piano Concerto. In this case, performed by Helène Grimaud with the Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra, Michael Gielen conducting.

Flow

In silence dark masses move;
emotions flow like cooling magma;
like tunneling magma trying to find light;

trying to reach the sky
beneath surging, crashing waves,
violently cooled, subdued by cold;

by metallic brine and cleansing foam
but finding form as steam;
angrily escaping mother's clutch;

ejected into air, seeking darkness again
beyond the blue dome, a frontier to
a still vacuum, one without sound;

the brittle cold of space,
the expanses between celestial bodies,
between stars, galaxies and nebulas;

the closest distance from this state of mind
and an enlightened existence
foregoing circles of cause and effect.