4 Romances, from Fireweed Poems | Romances: (1) and (2) |

(3)

On the podium, a man
professed that a pipe of crude
concrete made the same sound

as a flute made of gold; that, indeed,
"Sirs—a vibrating column of air
is a vibrating column of air."

Listening, she felt such a rage
well up within her that she wanted
to run up and gouge out his eyes.

But then she thought,

  "No— "

She would have her chance
to demonstrate the truth of her sound,

although few among them
would care to listen.





(4)

No one had taught her
how to tune the strings.
She simply knew. Without
knowing why, she sensed that,

beneath each sounding string
there lay a band of silent
light as big as the world itself.

She would turn the pegs
until the precise moment a
string touched this source
and was illumined by it.

And this she thought was love, as
big as the world itself, and yet,
so intimate and small she could
hold it in her hands.

And still she knew that, if
she were to hold it too tightly,
as hers and hers alone—

that this sound, no matter
how hard she might try, would lose
all its beauty, and that she would have
to stop and learn to tune again.

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