NACHTMUSIK

Nightly my house creates its all but silent
Music, the instruments mainly percussive and purely
Pianissimo; the potter of toes obscurely
Groping; the ever varying versatile

Chorus of crackles and snaps from the wood-stove, taps
From sleet or rain on the skylight, even snow’s
Swishes and soughs; occasional muffled tattoos
As the walls settle; the purring whisper perhaps

Of fridge or furnace or kettle; the drone of winds
Outside; the sighs of the breather’s ebb and flow;
The mattress’s muffled creak: when someone turns over:
This is found art, no score, undisciplined,

Unique to the dwelling, aleatory, unbound,
Human, recurring, vanishing with the sound.

(80, January 23, l993)

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