Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘Brahms’

In a Difficult Time, I Remember

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 23, 2025| 6 Comments »


for Kyra
 
 
In a corrugated metal culvert, tall enough
to walk in, Kyra made us a nest of warm blankets.
We entered the steel tube from the same side
the flash floods enter each fall, and we curled
into the softness she’d prepared. Meanwhile,
she settled on a stool and began to bow her cello,
a Brahms lullaby meant to lull and soothe.
Above us, cars hummed along on the highway.
Beside us, daylight glowed from both round ends.
Inside me, what was broken was still so deeply broken,
but I felt, too, the gentling that arrives with surprise
beauty. There are times someone tends to our hearts
with such warmth, such goodness, our hearts
cannot help but bloom. Even when the heart soil is barren.
Even when there’s no chance for rain. Even in the midst
of breaking—there, just at the edge of perception—
the heart a wildflower in spring. It is simple kindness
that grows us, the kind she brings with her everywhere.
Even now, I can see her swaying as she played,
her body a radiant pendulum draped in red velvet.
Even now, I hear the long, sonorous notes of her song.
Even now, I think of her smile, humble and shy, and
how that moment still reverberates—her cello, our sighs,
the laughter that somehow finds its way to our lips
in the saddest of times. Years later, her kindness still echoes.

Read Full Post »

For Brahms on His Birthday

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 8, 2021| 2 Comments »




For your birthday, Johannes,
I listened to your first piano concerto,
my heart trembling like a tuning fork
as the ivory keys and nylon strings
conversed about tenebrous grief and loss.

No one hissed in the audience
the way they did when your concerto
debuted. In fact, in my kitchen,
I sighed. I gasped. I thanked you
for the turbulence. What a gift when our sorrow

meets a sister sorrow so beautiful
we forget our own story, our own name,
and we tender what’s left
of our aching hearts to the blooming dark
that even now opens around us, inside us.

Read Full Post »