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Posts Tagged ‘cello’

On the Fourth Day of the Retreat at Omega when Noah Hoffeld Played Cello and We Wrote and Spoke Poems for Three Hours 

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on June 18, 2026| 6 Comments »


 
You may not believe me, but
the building was floating. 
Well above its foundation.
Right there in the middle
of the Hudson Valley woods,
surrounded by oak and locust,
squirrels leaping from tree to tree. 
 
You may not believe me, but that building
not only lifted from the ground 
and hovered in the air like a hummingbird
might hover above a Hosta or honeysuckle, 
it glowed. The building glowed. A soft, golden
hue that radiated through the gray
cocoon of the day, as a lighthouse beacons
through fog. 
 
And if you had been there in the building,
you might have felt it, too, the fluttering truth
of what happens to a body when, 
layer by layer it opens and opens, 
resists and opens, meets shame and opens, 
meets fear and opens, meets ache and disgust
and exhaustion and opens and opens until
all that is left of a person is the opening itself.
 
You may not believe that we,
who were in that floating building
became the glow, but I know. 
In my cells, still glowing hours later,
I know. I know. 
 

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Sitting Beside the Cellist During Sound Check

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on May 8, 2026| 10 Comments »


 for Noah Hoffeld
 
 
With the long slow pull and push
of the bow on the strings
in so few notes he carries
the unsayable into the room
till the air rhymes with loss 
and honey and amethyst sky
 
and every verb I’ve ever known
slips out of the clunky shoes of its syllables
to sit at the foot of the cello
saying, “teach me.” 

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One Evening

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on March 20, 2025| 4 Comments »

listening to cello
the smile of wanting
nothing but this

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One Listening to Dvorak

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 15, 2024| Leave a Comment »


 
with such fierce tenderness
the bow urges strains from the cello
like that, love, play me

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On My Birthday, A Death Song

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on November 3, 2017| 4 Comments »

 

with thanks to Kyra

 

 

Minor and slow,

the Russian death song

on the cello

fills the room

with loss and beauty,

the two rubbing

together like notes

side by side on the scale

played at the same time.

I lay on the floor

beneath the great instrument

and feel the waves of it

as if they originate inside me—

play it again, I beg

the cellist, and then,

when it’s done, I beg her

again, play it again,

And she does. And she does,

the warm notes filling

any chill they find.

 

 

 

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The Morning After Making Dinner with Rostropovich

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on July 1, 2012| 2 Comments »

soft thread of tune
beyond humming
still the attempt

*
though the musician
is long, long gone
strands of dark arpeggios
tucked
in my hair

*

because
he once played
that Bach prelude
I feel now so
beautiful

*

long after
the listening
still listening

*

almost like lips
bruised from a night of kissing
my ears this morning after

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While Making Dinner with Rostropovich: Three Haiku and a Tanka

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on June 30, 2012| 2 Comments »

It is Bach
I tell the broccoli
knife keeps quarter beats

*

all my empty spaces
alive with cello and silence—
every loss
has made it possible
this breathtaking resonance

*

the music touches
me everywhere, everywhere
purple gladiolas

*

in the kitchen
I am being spun, whirling
the cello bows

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