Highnotes

Liebestraum! Liebestod.

Love pitches between the swells

of a foreign language, alternately

soaring one way and sinking another,

overcome in a seasickness of emotion.

Little mention given to boredom

or attrition or to the everyday chorus

of living. No expense of time. No trade.

Entranced, love espouses itself

as poetry's bellman or music's messenger

with all the colors of every rainbow

and all the sounds of symphony.

From there, it is one small step.

Love reaches for eternity . . . across time,

the distance between two people

and into an astrology of highnotes,

hands full, heart racing to keep up,

the body an aging tenant of some other

need. For that moment. Ad infinitum.