The Big Bang Theory of Music                             


            Listen to a melody
            Until you know the tune by heart
            And every pitch by rote
 
            And then with luck
            If you’re not bored
 
            Imagine every sharp or flat,
            Each separate note,
            In whole and part,
            Reeled in and
            Simultaneously
            Struck
            To make one single-sounding
            Chord
 
            It took a while –
 
            Despite that first of nights
            When all your infinite variety,
            Reverberated to my very bones
            Dismissing time –
 
            To comprehend
            That one cannot dispense with
            Memory
            If music is desired


            ________________________________________________________________________


            Emanuel E. García, The Virtues of Calamity, One Hundred Poems2013

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