works of art

Thinking about that day, the dog running for the tennis ball, the pasta that they ate together, the feeling wells up inside him painfully. Wanting to say and hear the words again, that can never again be said or heard. To return to the house once more, and not find it dark and empty, but airy and bright again with open windows.

But go on, what happened? Crisp bedlinen, fragrance of cut flowers, cold winter sunlight. Her simple physical sense of being in the world again: renewed, as if after a long absence. Turning of the seasons. At work, the dim buzz of her phone against the desk.

Hearing and listening together, following together the almost too quick bright brilliant passage of melody, dispersing and vanishing in the air. For an hour to share this without speaking. To sit here with other people in the dark. A small experience, small enough to hold in the hand, to touch and smooth later in a pocket.

That God in his unknowable wisdom and mercy has left him this much. The cool touch of her hand at his face. The flash of chewing gum, the black tights. His mother, his brother, safe and well. Cold wet windswept streets. Books he hasn’t read yet. Opening theme of the Concerto No. 24. His friends, students, colleagues, their kindly and familiar

imagine also is life: the life that is only imagined. Clatter of saucepans, steam from the kettle. Even to think about it is to live.