the will of tempered hands
improvising imagination,
a mind’s eye settles
long enough to predict music’s existential future
watering classical’s blistering stream,
orchestrating passionate movements
time and again…
within his promiseland mind
heroic romance endured,
no restrained sound,
none,
no predictable flute lavishness
no voice could reach,
no ear could penetrate,
no ears could perceive…
all some pathetic genius
indeed, music was Beethoven’s conscious death,
unconscious joy,
the inevitability of a life profound,
music lilting skyward
from escalating fingers,
searching springtime Vienna fields
whirling romantic motion,
choruses of basses clearing a path
to discern a shepherd’s horn
commencing the Pastoral
and throughout his symphonic world,
his primal voice
muses resoundingly
what little life would mean
without the Music
such is a triumph heroic,
this man
without clean dress
his only clothes shone golden,
this man
gracing poverty
yet commanding dukes and lords to provide castles,
this man
who never called a lover by her name
yet secretly adored by all of Europe,
this man
who bravely dreamt
yet denying himself the time to rest,
to persist and survive
even as death shadowed
then swallowed him tragically
who other than this composer
was so gifted
to love
to testify magnanimously for humankind?
who prevailed so fearlessly to stumble down extraordinary streets?
humble enough to beg for that exact euphony?
masterful enough to devise that exact harmony?
and other than Beethoven was deaf enough
to explore then discover
mind’s one-way nighttime streets
with only a lead pencil and mirror to guide?
perhaps humanity someday will step unawares
into an unchartered hidden place
deep inside a disembodied dreamworld
and stumble into those first two chords of the Eroica,
those two pillars of pronouncement
forever threatening
forever challenging our ideas of perspective,
forever tuning our ear contrary to
any pursuit
of artistic and intellectual conformity