The Clarinet Player Poem by Daniel Brick

For Suzanne Stephens

I played a clarinet
for four inglorious years
in a high school band.
The band director taught me
what he could about playing
that slippery woodwind.
But I lacked the dexterity
to become a master of it,
and I could never measure
musical time, so complexly
divided and sub-divided,
so I was lagging two or
three measures behind the
rest of the players.

But listening to you
play clarinet and basset-horn
over the decades has been
redemptive. I hear the excellence
I sought when you play...
The ambient air carries
your beautiful tone into every
crevice of space and shelf
of time. Your mastery of
HARLEQUIN and IN FREUNDSCHAFT
accomplishes the orphic goal
of music. I believe four stars
at least show you the way.
I follow after in a wide-awake
trance of close listening. Truly
angels are watching over us.