• Elizabeth Smither

 

 

 

Listening to the concert program

 

After years of listening the puzzle remains:
how does music get off the ground
launch itself into a band
that is sinuous and floats
somewhere about pew-height?


It needn’t be holy. Better not.
It has to take up a lot of doubt
and parts where the composer was certain
(and used trumpets and horns)
as well as slow passages.


But it floats: some higher, some lower
as if all the motes of dust
in a grand or small room
a cathedral or an arena
were airborne and couldn’t get down.