First Movement

Standing in front, the tremble of her hand

Was subtly amplified by her baton-

The first stroke of meter as yet un-spelled,

The baton stood atop a beat unmade,

Shaking in a way one could not quite know

As nervousness, or, a suggestion of

Intensity, to, perhaps, the woodwinds.

Brass, percussion-one could not quite be sure.

All that was known is that somehow it was

A dynamic that reached beyond pure sound

Into the un-eternal beginning-

Its permanence in its non-notation.

There was ample time for the silence to swell,

But then it broke, as did she-

The baton fell.

Carl Nery