Late Quartet
Beethoven must’ve been deaf
by then. But not blind—though
what does that mean?
That two “buts”
don’t make an “and”?
Outside the window, sun and leaves
don’t concern
themselves with my phrasing.
They’re making love this morning,
turning sunlight to
maple trees
for later generations to sit under
the boughs,
or look out their windows
at them while smoking
pensively, as we did,
when cigarettes, cheap then,
made you feel cool, not
contaminated,
though everything you do
kills you
eventually. Is this why Beethoven sounds
so sad, so richly
melancholic, so continually
expressive
in the darker tones—that he saw
when he could no longer
hear?
Joseph Somoza
Posted over on Bobby Byrd's site White Panties and Dead Friends
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