19 October 2017

Like a boat taking
repeatedly to water,
my mind takes
repeatedly to Brahms’s
Symphony No. 4 (in E minor Op. 98),
the very sea of it
meeting me with a host
of conditions the sailor
must know to manipulate,
to sail out
and back.  Oft I am
overwashed by the waves
of the music, to the point
I seem to become
the music, the music
raising me from the tomb
of my subconscious, until I sense
I am pure sound
by the time the Allegro
giocoso begins.  Then,
rapture happens!  I am
each note being
played.  I dissolve
into the symphony,
boat and water, one.

Philip Kuepper
(26 March 2017)