The Bach ensemble

Christian Century, May 2, 2001 by Max Keith Sutton, Poem

for Claire

   You love it: the great taskmaster
   multi-tasking, going about his celestial
   busyness like the deity, but perhaps more neatly:
   nothing random, hit or miss
   in this spinning universe with all its moving parts
   for strings, oboes, bassoon and relentless
   continuo--perpetual bowing and blowing,
   runs, chases, statements, echoes,
   sixteenth notes whizzing past the upper balcony
   like swifts, like starlings orbiting,
   swirled energies in unearthly order.

   I wonder, though: does the divine mind
   never rest? Never settle on just one thing
   at a time? Someone might use a breather.
   Not you: intent as when you edit copy,
   balance the cheekbook or clean house, but happier,
   breathing ozone, rarefied airs,
   while the clod beside you with his rustic ears
   longs for bird song, a solo bobwhite,
   a raindrop, icicles trickling from the eaves.

   You love the eternal discipline of overlapping sounds.
   I pray for rests, a single tune: a little plainsong, please.