Until It Finds A Tree Poem by gershon hepner

A bird flies round until it finds a tree;
its spirit doesn’t tell it one is better,
and even when it lands it feels it’s free
to try another, avian jet-setter.

Inspired by Ricardo Muti who told Daniel J. Wakin (“And the Brass Ring Goes to the Chicago Symphony: Riccardo Muti Says Yes, ” NYT, May 6,2008) :

Mr. Muti called the Chicago Symphony “a perfect machine, ” with the versatility to play huge works like Prokofiev’s Symphony No.3 and Scriabin’s “Poem of Ecstasy” or to display the refined delicacy needed for small-scale Schubert.He remained steadfastly unattached after resigning as music director of the Teatro Alla Scala in Milan in 2005 in an operatic kerfuffle. Orchestra musicians and other workers at the theater had turned against him in an internal political wrangle. “I thought it was time for me to be absolutely free, like the birds in the air, ” he said. “Birds go around and they enjoy their happiness, their freedom. But sometimes it can happen they find a tree, and they like to stop on a tree, and they didn’t know about the tree before. It doesn’t mean one tree is better than another tree. It just happens at the right moment in life.”

5/6/08