Might We Ever…
by Odin Roark

Fathom
The depth of agony
A genius creation goes through
The willingness to imagine
Beyond expectant physical endurance

Understand
The amount of protected experience
Folded into the visceral sharing of
Pavarotti’s nine spine-tingling high Cs
In Donizetti’s “Pour mon ame”
Fracturing listener’s anticipations
Like the shattering of glass
Amidst a lightening bolt
In bright sunlight

Believe
The arc of a leap
The airless still-life
Of a form suspended
Defying gravity
Be it Nureyev
Baryshnikov
Or David Hallberg

Or

Withstand
One’s internal turmoil
When allowing a Barber Adagio
A Beethoven 7th
A Coltrane anything
To infiltrate man’s vast network
Those nerves and synapse celebrations
We so often take for granted

How frivolous we have become
Abandoning the gift of prescience
One's ability to foresee and discipline the next moment
That time when richness of nature’s art
Only needs its due respect
To present a stage of creative imagination
Our own magnificence

Instead

Far too often
The brush stroke of a Starry Night
The perfection of a Modigliani distortion
A Dudamel flurry of baton passion
Or the vibration of Tibetan long horns
Goes ignored

Can we ever
Become again
The gifts
We possess

Or

Will the downward spiral
Forever bury who we once were
Who we were destined to become
How evolution meant we serve
The next cosmic event

Might we ever…