I tried to enter the music by diligence,
by études, Hanon, Czerny,
by virtuosity, bravura, con fuoco,
but it was still infinitely far away –
music of time, notes like days,
swift, swift, but which is the tonic?
My teacher said: this is your challenge:
you have yet to make the ultimate mistake.
When you finally enter the music
the audience will have left long ago,
yawning and buttoning up their coats,
you will blush for your ignorance,
the janitor with his long push broom
will be sweeping up crumpled programmes
and the snow in the sleek bay windows
will tumble in whorls, pulsing, night snow:
only the music is silent as your mind.
D Nurkse was shortlisted for the 2011 UK Forward Prize and is a recipient of the Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His 12th collection, A Country of Strangers, a "new and selected", was published by Alfred Knopf, NY, in 2022
by études, Hanon, Czerny,
by virtuosity, bravura, con fuoco,
but it was still infinitely far away –
music of time, notes like days,
swift, swift, but which is the tonic?
My teacher said: this is your challenge:
you have yet to make the ultimate mistake.
When you finally enter the music
the audience will have left long ago,
yawning and buttoning up their coats,
you will blush for your ignorance,
the janitor with his long push broom
will be sweeping up crumpled programmes
and the snow in the sleek bay windows
will tumble in whorls, pulsing, night snow:
only the music is silent as your mind.
D Nurkse was shortlisted for the 2011 UK Forward Prize and is a recipient of the Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His 12th collection, A Country of Strangers, a "new and selected", was published by Alfred Knopf, NY, in 2022
