Ars Poetica: Brother
someday, he will sit stiff
on our piano bench
to which he has grown accustomed, and i,
home, will sit nearby
in our cozy armchair,
an old accomplice to my posture.
i can’t remember the last time i saw him relax
this boy, this impossibly-almost man.
he will play me what he is able
of the opus he meticulously composed
in the year since we last met,
in the year since he told me
he wished he knew who i was,
who i had become since moving away.
i can still feel his excitement in the message
i received last month once he had finished.
i will revel in every chord progression,
every stylized transition,
and any idiosyncratic modulation,
exemplifications of his desire to see G*d.
and i will congratulate my brother,
for i have grown to admire the passion
with which he worships the One Who Loves.
and i will ask to read him a poem.
and during these moments, we will glean
a piece of each other that we usually cannot hold.
i think this is what love can look like:
distant hearts drawing near, speaking
a language without words, the language
that lets them feel they are not alone,
not so different after all.
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