I heard the music once
a decade past:
a hard-paced hysteria
with the cold of winter thunder,
the strength of unceasing clockwork,
the peace of held-back tears.
It made me dream a wake at night,
a burning pyre,
voices of lament.
Its unsignalled silence
led me.
My pyre spat,
my lamenters wailed.
I invented a dead man's face
and saw his living conflict.
The music reawoke,
and quick-marched grief
into the past.