Any work of art can wake us
Out of who we are so that we never
Wear our former selves again like clothes.
As if by the hand, sketches can take us
Into world itself, deeper than ever.
What would we be now if not for these
Gestures, poignant flourishes which make us
Follow them unthinkingly, wherever?
Compositions geniuses compose
Are like lovers who never forsake us –
Once inside us, touching us forever.
Melodies they know that no one knows.
Early among treats life would provide you,
Music narrated and spoke to you.
In the lullaby you fell asleep to
Melody was layered deep inside you.
In a language you and only you knew,
Song made passages that you could weep to.
When something had happened that you cried to,
Sobbing like a soloist ran through you
With a dotted rhythm you could keep to.
Despair made you feel justified to
Be, in waves of suffering that knew you –
Intervals like those great singers leap to.
Immerse yourself in music as you might
Step into an ocean that is bluer
Than your toes believe that water should be.
Feel as if your skin possessed a sight
You have never used. Find senses truer
Than even your sense of hearing would be
Listening to random sounds at night.
See this universe reduced to fewer
Objects, only those you understood. Free
Empathy to hear as you see light.
Music can make everything much newer
Than your heart imagines living could be.
We may love their looks, wholly mistaken. It was really suffering which taught them. Those who live too fast, as if time threw them, Chips placed onto velvet, swiftly taken – Those whose bodies glow, as if death thought them Beautiful, whom light adores, clings to them – Those who sleep through fire and awaken In another world – whatever brought them Here ensures that age cannot pursue them – Those who flee all limits run, forsaken, Straight into the infinite which sought them Out, from all the crowds who thought they knew them.
Poetry by Stephen Lefebure may be found in his own volume, Rocks Full of Sky, and in Wild Song – Poems of the Natural World and Going Down Grand: Poems from the Canyon, two anthologies of nature poetry. His work may also be found in journals like Wilderness, Chicago Studies, Bombay Review and Bangalore Review. He lives in Evergreen, Colorado, USA.