Rodgers and Heart

What burns inside this plaintive strain
of Richard Rodgers’ painful melody? –
Slaughter on Tenth Avenue embeds
its harmonies – gently jolts and weaves

me, up and down, as if to have me
creep along, around the mortal spine
of New York City night: glimmers of
a light peripherally simmering: rife –

trembling – hexed – and always just,
just out of reach – perplexed. Today I am
to play the violin in string quartets: but in
the breach between me and the music,

now, is Richard Rodgers’ darkling heart –
the slightly syncopated thing that
starts and stops and lingers – darts –
between the major and the minor: let

divine deliverance – those yearned-for
saviors! – Haydn, Mozart, Schubert –
grace the music stand; let Richard
Rodgers shelter in the harbor of my hand.


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