listening to Trio Duende play Allegro con Brio, from Piano Trio 1 in B Major
Once, on a rainy night, I sat in the home
of a family I did not know and listened
to a trio playing Brahms. Though
it is only hours later, I unwrap
the memory as if it is tied with silk ribbons
and wrapped in gold tissue—something
precious as a time-smoothed stone
on the banks of a slender river. Unlike
a museum piece, this memory wants
to be opened, to be held, to be touched,
to be cradled by bare hands. Wants
my finger prints all over it—
the memory of how beauty swells in us
and then breaks us, breaks us
the way the piano itself broke apart tonight—
the pedal rods clattering to the ground
mid-movement. Beauty bids us play on
as the pianist did tonight. Play on.
Though broken. Though we know
the work eventually ends in a minor key.
Play on, as if we trust the line of beauty
will not be broken. No matter how intense
it gets. Even if the world explodes.