There is one story arc
Of every story told or written
There is stasis
A point of attack
Escalations
A point of no return
Climax
Denouement
A new stasis achieved
The form
As universal as blankets
But music has her own rules
or rather refuses the limitations
of her more restricted brothers
Yet she can play their game
Adagio
A soft wandering of the strings as if walking
In pleasing thoughts
A pause
The thoughts grow heavier, reiterating the initial theme,
But with a growing intensity
Violins to the front
Cellos to the rear
Now switch
Now everyone
What tension
A climbing upward
The air is thinning
Turn around and stand still, harmonious
Now climb
Higher
Violins scream as fingers move lower and lower on their bodies
To the edge of existence
Look over, into the void
The scream
The terror
Silence
The theme adjusted
Soft and gentle
One deserves kindness
A breath
The theme
At peace
When I first met the song
It was a devastating beauty
I shared it with a love
The one who was beautiful
Who exists in her heart
Our minds lonely
She loved music as I love music
We listened on the bench seat in the truck so loud
In that night’s darkness
She wept and I wept
And we loved each other
for a shared overwhelming beauty
For a shared understanding
We travelled the arc together
Wrapped in the blanket
The strings holding together a ten-minute moment
- The adagio in this poem is the well-known and widely called upon Adagio for Strings, Op. 11 Molto Adagio, written by Samuel Barber and conducted by the mighty Leonard Bernstein. You’ve heard it already, in movies, television, and ideally simply as music. I hope you’ll give yourself every second of this special ten minutes. Afterward, try the poem alongside the song, and have another feel at it.