Listening to Yo Yo Ma

his cello exploring a well of darkness,

echoing from walls of a cave of longing,

gathering gravity into itself,

mimicking grief.

I thought I could write loss out of me --

a redacted narrative.

thirty words or less,

an erasure poem

with fault lines expunged.

But words skipped across the surface

of my tongue, dissembled on my palate.

Nouns and verbs changed places

in an endless game of musical chairs.

I couldn't remember how to arrange letters

into something which meant:

the inadequacy of language a second death

until Bach burrowed into the abandoned space

the cello held low notes

long past the heart's unravelling

sighing into deep bone,

resting.

I thought words defined us as human,

but no, how then explain cello's speechless desire

to reach inside and massage the voiceless heart,

how then explain Keller,

grace in silence,

one body's intimate knowledge of another,

the wordless song they make?

These are the only languages

I know exist.

But if I could take a bow,

draw it gently across such strings,

those are the sounds I'd want to write.