- for Richard Leppert -
Crotchets attack one another with winds and strings
in a picture by the younger Laroon.
One note wields a bass clarinet; another flings
a mallet and defends itself with a bassoon.
The scene is unlit by an absent moon.
In between, a handful of staves crouch low in fear,
at loss as to who in the mass is foe, who kin.
What we can see the staves can only hear,
lacking referents with which to sort through the din.
This is a demonstration of music undone
through the loss of its ethereal sheen –
flutes broken, tympani punctured, strings unstrung.
From a treble clef quavers gaze down on the scene,
shocked witnesses to the carnage below.
At center, a broken violin and its bow.
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