Jass
This article originally appeared in Southern Exposure Vol. 6 No. 3, "Passing Glances." Find more from that issue here.
It never came,
The splendid sound
From pain
And grace
And agony.
The sounds of elegant
Strings reverberated:
In stiff collar,
In black coat,
He flowed forth a prelude
With deft tenderness of technique
But the possession of the
Thing never came to be.
It never came at all.
The echo in the velvet hall
Was heard and drew applause
But the thing itself
Never did appear. It never came.
A hollow echo
Of pain resounded,
A hollow echo
Of grace not grace —
Of agony devised.
And faces of the searchers,
Pallid under chandelier,
Were harsh with what
The sound had missed,
Angered that the thing itself
Eluded and evaded them.
They knew it as a breach of power —
The thing, so real, could not
Be mocked nor imitated,
A beauty not to be conjured.
— from East of Moonlight
Red Clay Books