Experiencing Mantra Poem by Daniel Brick

)

Do you simply wait in whatever station
you find yourself? Is waiting that simple?
I suppose it is, if you are content and
no Eternity summons you. But not if you are
like a limp flag while the other flags flap
on the edge of the wind, or like a boat clinging
to its harbor slot, paralyzed by conflicting
weather reports. How can the Eternal penetrate
such time-bound realities? And thus you find yourself
not awaiting but anticipating MANTRA, the issue
is Decision, no other word will suffice. There is
the stage, the two pianists are poised. They are
content, their minds are attuned, they flex
their skilled hands. One of them catches your eye
and smiles brightly. He can play this music
intuitively. His colleague has turned inward,
because that is where he finds this music.
If he would speak to you, he would say,
We don't just live with MANTRA, we live
through MANTRA. The smiling pianist is nodding
his head in assent. MANTRA will claim sixty-seven
minutes and thirty-three seconds of everyone's life.

II

You already realize MANTRA is Music of Rescue.
We all need rescue from something possibly
malign, perhaps even murderous. Or it may be
joy-killing ennui. Fear or Boredom - they both
kill the mind, hold the soul hostage, twist
the body toward base pleasures. This is more
serious than you are willing to admit. Still
now and forever, you invoke both Time and Eternity,
when you acknowledge: MANTRA is Music of Rescue.
Both pianists, the Smiling One and the Interior One,
are the agents of rescue. They carry forth
Stockhausen's precisely composed score
from the Realm of Music and place its Eternity
in Time. If they used words instead of tones,
they would say, We don't just live with MANTRA,
we live through MANTRA. But they use tones,
not language. The visionary moment will be
extended for sixty-seven minutes and thirty-three
seconds...

III

The concert is over as a musical event, but
it continues as a social event. People mill about,
indulge in small talk, make post-concert plans
or post-concert excuses. It is our life in time
asserting itself. Even the pianists are casual
as they autograph programs and recordings. But
most of them feel an obscure but genuine mood
inside, a soul-state composed of Stockhausen's
tones and their feelings. This mood is intensely
quiet within them. Its resonance will stretch
throughout their being, beyond mere rescue,
instilling MANTRA energy to run parallel
with their ordinary energy. How long will
the visionary state last? How great will it
grow? How much wonder can you carry within you?
You are accustomed to carrying the weight
of disappointment, as if it were your heritage.
Are you ready to carry instead this wonder
within you? To keep it fresh and fascinated?
The answer to your question swirls in the air
you breathe, it is lodged in your soul, it is
a simple formula like one that generates art:
We don't just live with MANTRA, we live through MANTRA.