the great
Mordant. Descent. So heartbreak, even then,
Was known to him. When Bach returned on foot
From Lübeck, all he said was he had been
To the north to learn a thing or two
About his art. He didn’t say how long
Of those four months he walked beside the same
Slow river while imagining a song
With current broad and strong enough to blame
His fear for life on. Or, when nighttime fell
In moonlit rivulets, how long he tried
To sleep and dream of nothing else but home
Before new harmonies of grief would swell,
Surrounding him where he lay, a hundred miles
In every way from everything he’d known.