Beethoven

I wouldn’t be a poet 

if I never wrote an ode

to Beethoven.

Yesterday, waiting for a friend,

I heard a Mexican orchestra

rehearsing the last movement

of the fifth symphony…the flute

part and the horn part. I so wanted

them, with all my heart, to get it right.

Lead poisoned. mad and deaf,

he didn’t seem to mind…bulled

his music into creation with

extraordinary passion and love.

Beethoven is one of the few that

automatically breaks my heart.

Here is non verbal communication

that rings clear hundreds of years.

Maybe Nietsche could hold a candle

to his mind….maybe Whitehead….

maybe Buddha, when he was on

a drunk.