A Poem And The Sounding This Pascha

Poem

The mouth

the eyes two

my finger tips

place inside the space

the architecture of sound

I'm listening to Zelenka this Pascha

sounding my affect

I'm telling my friend it's passion

but it's really the sound of breaking

two

Points in a wave

an arrangement of sorts

the water of sound finds the hairline crack

the lowest point

the raja and the octave

the one and the all.

FT-Lynch, Easter 2019

***

The following is a poem from Be With, winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize.

The Sounding

What closes and then
luminous? What opens
and then dark? And into
what do you stumble
but this violet
extinction? With
froth on your lips.
8:16 a.m. The morning’s
sleepy face

rolls its million
eyes. Migrating flocks
of your likesame species
incandesce
into transparency.
A birdwatcher lifts

her binoculars. The con-
tinuous with or without
your words
situates you here
(here (here)) even while
you knuckle your eyes
in disbelief. Those

voices you love (human
and not), can you
hear their echoes
hissing away like
fiery scale
from an ingot hammered
on some
blacksmith’s anvil?
And behind those
voices, what is that
blowing
the valves of your ears open
as black rain,
not in torrents, but
ceaselessly comes
unchecked out of everywhere
with nothing
to slacken it.

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