Just that other me again

Union

My song’s a rose, I’ll pull its petals free,
Reveal its softness and track down its scent,
By asking questions of its mystery,
For beauty should be no impediment.

Dick Strauss was here before*, that’s no surprise,
His cavalier, a gorgeous androgyne,
Wooed Sophie with a rose and yearning eyes
To earn her honour and her love divine.

Dick asked if words or music wore the crown**,
A query which proved madly circular:
No text, no tale - a sense of discontent;
No notes - no warbling at the uvula.

My song’s by Hank*** I have the coded score,
Assisting those of cryptographic bent.
The notes will wound you to the very core,
The words arrive and your emotion’s spent.

They fuse and bind me to their shared design,
I am their reed, their prophet here below.
Sounds, voice and meaning in this space align
And I am song and lost in afterglow.

The waves rebound to agitate all sense
As words take on more than they ever knew,
Where love and fever in their modes condense
And definitions fade in much ado.

This uttered thing, this noise, this warming fire,
This essence of a soul I may possess,
May urge and cause mere beings to aspire
To states beyond mere human consciousness.

A better part of us, refined in light,
A harmony on ghostly wings of flight.

*Der Rosenkavalier. Opera. Richard Strauss
**Capriccio. A Conversation Piece for Music. Richard Strauss.
*** I attempt from love’s sickness. Rondeau. Henry Purcell