January 2nd, 2015


Firebird , Igor Stravinsky, 1910

We gathered in the basement
my brother's dreams
my sister's candles
my brother, my sister, and I.

We listened to the whole thing -
47 minutes!

By the second movement
while my brother was upstairs
we turned off all the lights.

The basement must braided
into the cranberry and gardenia
of evaporating wax.

The conductor moved his
hands like birds
and his face pulsed
with every note,
twitched with every tremolo

It is like God I said

By some other movement
(for now we were lost)
we watched the flames
sharpen and elongate
at the higher pitches
and stutter at the low drums

We considered frequency
and Joshua suggested that
the flame changed only
when sounds were separate
the air is too dense when 
the whole symphony is playing

We watched the flame;
His theory was sound.

1910: while everything
edged towards now,
a young, as yet invisible,
man wrote a ballet
about a bird.

Did he look at his thin face
in the mirror on opening night
and watch his muscles pulse,
his heart twitch?
Did he watch the candlelight
trace his lips?

And in my dreams I see myself on a wolf's back
Riding along a forest path
To do battle with a sorcerer-tsar
In that land where a princess sits under lock and key,
Pining behind massive walls.
There gardens surround a palace all of glass;
There Firebirds sing by night
And peck at golden fruit.

I want to hold all the hands
that have shaped our world;
I want to be burned by the heat
of their dreams.