To A Musician. A Poem

On Not Facing Reality – As Usual

What then, if I should do this foolish thing
And leap into the gulf between gray earth
And all my yet unwrit eternity,
And what if plea of yearning spanless dearth
Of music pulls me unsupported on,
Preferring dissonance, some sound absurd,
Uncertain harmonies to dull accord,
To dry-cut unisons, too often heard?

What if I brace and step into the mist
To grasp a ghost unknown outside a dream,
And wide-eyed, bring a figure vaguely-drawn
To phantom view, and paint what it would seem
Aside from any cool reality?
And feel and touch what only in my mind
Has flesh and bone and solidness of light
And take to heart a thing of unsure line?

Oh God! what then? Could I not fail to fall
Into abyss sans dream, sans light, sans sound,
And would my folly be the only line
To noose me up, a slipped and tightened crown?

Or would I, credulous, go forth to live
These imaged lines, all treachery above,
Called forth from void to firm reality
And Heaven save the mark! find you to love?

by Catrin Lewis, March 1985