Golden Locks

“The appearance of the Messe Saint-Cécile caused a kind of shock. This simplicity, this grandeur, this serene light which rose before the musical world like a breaking dawn, troubled people enormously … at first one was dazzled, then charmed, then conquered.” — Camille Saint-Saens

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We sat again this morning
after the moon waxed its deep way
over the far horizon late in my waking.

Nothing special, just the super normal
sense of a practice grounded in all this time
spent staying wide and awake,
our moving minds alive and chaotic
and lovely as the sound of silence
until we walked back outside,
looked at the passing clouds,
and shared some small words
about the difference between
silver birches and poplars
(though no-one really knew)
and that, too, was perfect.

Then a few steps back to the cottage
with last night’s rain running into
seven-sided slices of morning sun,
and the long drive back home
with bishops in their red gowns on a gate,
and the small mountains by Molteno
which made me think of my professor,
(and what that word really means)
all of it shining now, as it shone then,
before I saw it and after I pass.

Yes, old friends, everything is
just right.

Traces

For the patron saint of music

And her golden compass