With Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins
In D minor, BWV 1043—Largo ma non tanto
The plectrum—electrum that joins
the silver and its shade and tremor
that widens and gives in to a way
and the gold—the splendid shower
of your rapt, unbroken, intent gaze—
dips me once more in a melody
the motif of which used to flee
and escape us below like Aesculapius
from that cave—spēlaion—that turns
the Raven or the sun from white to black,
and yet, in that world sunken underground,
a shimmering glint of memory on the walls
still stayed and played some of its lyrics old
from up high—echoes trickling erratically down
from the sphere of those greater lives and loves
in which the celestial retained faithfully abides.
And there—ever remembered and thus evoked
and thus returned, Aesculapius, the Apollonic
healer, would still descend, both learning more
and teaching us below the modes—the melodies
that sinuously wreathe and undulate the kindling
of the souls with bends and turns to lead us out
through that labyrinth like a master’s virtuoso hand
that finds and shows beauty folded even in the stone.
There that son of Apollo and poetry that educates,
elucidates, and educes out from sleep the soul
are now coming from the ends of your adored eyes,
giving a sense musical even to this space and time
and filled—like us, Apollo’s daughters and his sons—
with that very same Aesculapian, recuperative art
that creeps and steals its chosen souls from death
and Hell—with its immortal tip—penetrating touch.
Of God and love be music, let my soul be in that love
and in its know—and let our soul be that musician.
A musician conversant and intimate with that Muse.
A musician of that love and poetry forth surging font
when a mere verse, a strophe, a passage become—
like your speaking eyes—a way—an open gate
to where reigns this divine nature and true art—
in each other rejoined—rejoiced—recognized.
