the steps of music are different
from our own well-tempered octaves.
transcriptions into strictly set-off
lines and spaces
distort the character of music
and matter, both.
all our efforts to script existence
cannot convey what we want
and need to know;
we are not interested in intervals, but rather in distances.
the problem: transforming into a system of cents,
our clanking ankles weighed down,
drowning out that tonic hum,
those wholetones whistling through our bones
in quiet moments.
somewhere there is a distance found
without walking--
a red closing of eyelid skies,
a harbor laced with vessels,
shipping cells like notes to the heart.
