04-02-2017, 03:23 PM
The Same White Daylight
We have been invited to listen
to a child torture the harpsichord.
We would prefer to move
the harpsichord for friends,
up wet steps to the third floor of an apartment—
like Sisyphus and the damn stone.
Yet, we go
and tell the child
how proud we are of them.
Even if we know, the lessons were wasted,
and if we wish we were wasted
when we had to hear them play.
We press our fingertips upon the glass
of their window and stare
through the square of our window,
and the same light blinds us,
and we comment on how stupid we are
that we looked into the light and cannot see—
Something we would never say
to the child.
We have been invited to listen
to a child torture the harpsichord.
We would prefer to move
the harpsichord for friends,
up wet steps to the third floor of an apartment—
like Sisyphus and the damn stone.
Yet, we go
and tell the child
how proud we are of them.
Even if we know, the lessons were wasted,
and if we wish we were wasted
when we had to hear them play.
We press our fingertips upon the glass
of their window and stare
through the square of our window,
and the same light blinds us,
and we comment on how stupid we are
that we looked into the light and cannot see—
Something we would never say
to the child.
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson