Wednesday, December 04, 2013
Who Went Unheard
Who Went Unheard
I think again and again
of those who went
so long unheard,
or even ignored.
Vivaldi and the children,
some hardly bigger
than their instruments.
Nobody really noticed.
No one really cared.
Yet they played on.
And dear Emily,
her letter to the world--
something kept her writing,
packets bound together in wool,
poems in mittens,
dropped for passing school children.
And of course Mozart,
his reward
the pauper’s grave.
Who knows where he
entered earth?
All transmuted
to sound.
And even Bach,
out of favor at the end.
Blake, Van Gogh, Dante
in exile...the list goes on. . .
One likes to believe
that in the elsewhere realm
these were at last were fully heard,
vibrant chords circulating among
the angelic choirs,
choruses of Gloria
and string quartets
and the audience ravished—silent--
becoming only this.
Dorothy Walters
November 26, 2013
