May 9, 2014 Uncategorized
Music in the Present Tense
©May 9th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
The insistent beep of a device somewhere
The punctuations of birdsong
The clack-clack of high heels tripping down the hallways
The voices raised in ritual greeting
The hum of a computer awakening
The whir of an unidentifiable machine
The question from a student
Poking a head in at my door:
Is Poetry Club cancelled for today?
And my strangled “Yes,”
Accompanying a nod,
The high hum of electricity
The shimmer-buzz of fluorescent tubes,
The shuffle of janitorial feet
Jingling keys and all,
The clicking of my fingers on these keys
And the tap-tap of my restless ankle-boots –
All these lead me to this question:
And for what purpose
Is all this work, this tension?
Where’s the music?
The piano at the far end stands
Silent, withdrawn, reserved.
The guitar teeters madly
On the counter where a student
(Or perhaps I) put it,
The hanging-plants overhead grow silently,
Breathing in my carbon-breath,
While I drink in their lovely
Oxygen-rich green exhalation,
So symbiotically symbolic!
The rhythm of inhale-exhale
The music of plant and mammal
In a room full of made things,
The give-and-take of the natural
And unnatural, mediated by
Human intention and action.
I listen intently, and think:
And what’s the purpose?
And, Where’s the music?
I wonder again.
And the music blossoms,
Rose-like and silken
Spiky and molten
Opaquely clear
Before my eyes, my ears,
My breath, my skin.
Right here, amidst all these
Things, these thieves of Time and attention,
These sheaves of paper
And cluster of pens.
Amidst all these four-legged
Quietly triumphant things
On which we sit, and at which
We labor mightily.
But I don’t hear it. I wonder:
Where’s the music? Shall I play some?
And then, I find it, right here, see?
Tight, at my feet, hands, skin, ears.
Still, I’ll play the guitar,
I think, and stop
This, this thing I’m doing.
And I do.
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Tags: #Music, #Original Poetry, classroom, daily noises as music, intention vs. action, sounds, symbiosis, Work