Some music travels ancient roads within us through mud and sweat to the stars
some music travels ancient roads along Sanskrit or Chinese sutras and Greek
paeans or learns counter-point as if taught by angels to deathless Bach
some music remains like flecked rosin from a bow meeting a violin string
on the skin of Endre’s Guarnarius with its complex overtones at UCLA’s Royce Hall that enlarges all lives momentarily
some music comes from Jim’s bassoon with its varied and bony sounds
in Berkeley’s orchestra playing Alban Berg’s first opera Wozzeck
or from Mary’s mezzo-soprano voice singing Brahm’s Liebeslieder Walzer
on the first classical digital recording
or like Walt Whitman’s admiring the Italian tenor
some like the blat of brass jazz in augmented chords
against the mirrors of The Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach
as I played my Selmer trumpet with the others
that foggy day in the 1960’s
or singing a song from Azerbaijan in the Song of Earth chorale
or twisted up adolescent heart lonely holding a guitar bought in Mazatlan
learning the chords and the folksongs of the English heritage
some music coming with inner quiet in the fathomless enormity
of now presence in the jnaña yoga beyond thought
Milarepa listening with hand-cupped ear to Ah!
some music ascending and descending a ladder Jacob knows with angels
and in the cool dark of the foundation of a Tree uncreated light comes
among luminous orbs into adziluth and beyond
the reed flute taken from the reedbed mourns its separation
like the soul separate from God, in Rumi’s Mathnawi
deployed into ney, tar, kora, pippa, koto and shakuhachi
the fingerings and breathings that broadcast
some music travel those same ancient roads to the stars
shaken, at times exhilirate, dilated, calmed at last
we carry some music even unto death
and are we not some music being played by those same stars?
December 27, 2016—January 18, 2017
David DeBus. The Grove, Scripps Ranch
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