Music Theory

for John Chance

In the beginning was Theory and the Theory was made flesh
so that we could find our way home. I walk slowly
through the points of rain.

In the beginning was sound and it was everything, against all odds.
“Never was there a time you and I did not exist, Arjuna.”
I am a ball of wings rolling toward you. Theory become flesh.
The music is in the gaps.

I enter the lobby. "I've come to see my uncle," I say.
"Where will you be waiting?" says the lady in the glass cage.
"The waiting room", I reply. She will not meet my eye.
I am announced through seven miles of hallways.

He appears, hollow and weary on his cane.
It is not a walking stick to navigate the world of the living.
It is a handrail to the grave.

He is an unanswered question. We step out into the mist and stop.
I watch him openly, as one watches a child, the insane, or the dead.
“Listen to the trees,” he says, rolling his eyes up and back.
“It is good to be alive; to share a little company now and then.”


asha