The Brahms Recital Poem by Daniel Brick

Through the deep night
he drove in and out of
so many remembered lives.
A mere hour earlier
the violinist paused
before beginning
his final offering;
"There's joy in my family
this week. Our daughter-in-law
gave birth to our first
grandchild. You will forgive me
for putting it this way? "
Laughter and applause spread
through the small auditorium
filled to capacity. The violinist,
the renowned Sir James Crofton,
was so happy, his joy cast a sheen
over the music lovers. Still smiling,
Sir James nodded to his pianist.
He emphatically began the Sonata
in D minor by Brahms. In his intense
solitude, the listener let the perfection
of the music raise him into its high spaces
above the dangling shreds of a destiny
relentlessly unraveling even now. And then
it was over except for the formalities of
applause and departure. And the listener
realized he had listened with a doubled
hearing - his certainly and hers
just as certainly...

His drive past ghostly trees
that lined the road was a loneliness
that exceeded definition. At the door
of their cottage, it was not his wife
who greeted him but their hospice nurse:
"She's sleeping now, very peacefully.
I gave her the pill an hour ago."
She helped him take off his winter
coat. And he stood exposed as if
naked in his own home.
How much he wanted to tell
the nurse and Judith that
he had witnessed that nexus
of old life and new life,
that exchange of departure
and arrival, with things dying
and things new born. He was amazed
at the depth of consolation
such knowledge conveyed
impartially, almost secretly.
Outwardly he said softly,
"Oh, thanks for this respite."
Inwardly his gratitude became
a prayer, "Oh, thank you
for the glory of it all."