Palimpsest

On an old 78 master

recorded in Alsace in 1940

and never released

through a steady drizzle of time and primitive technology

you can hear Wanda Landowska playing

Couperin as devotedly as one builds a cathedral

or a dike.

The muffled thunder near the middle of the piece

isn't thunder.

The Germans were shelling Saint something la Forét.

Right through to the last cadence

the music never flinches

nor do you forget

even afterwards

the briefly recorded

thunder.