At the Concert

Gustav Mahler’s 4th Symphony

The music lifts me,
shocks and dazzles me.
The music hauls me to a wordless place.
Mahler’s childhood plays out.
I hear his Granny peddling wares,
I hear the marching bands, the ones
the young composer heard go by.

How he speaks the tongue called music,
How the parts cohere to story
How he soothes me
with the river of his childhood,
always babbling in the back.

And when through the dark,
the piercing dark,
breaks the sun sublime,
how every instrument of orchestra
sustains and underpins it.

And now the sound of resolution
brings this listener tears and softening.
The tender orchestration gentles grief.
The music sings the sadness into honor.
The music, seeking,
seeking peace and loveliness
finds it in the very midst of death.

Still I hear the river running
Still I hear the fairies
make their laughter music.
Oh! The gates!
This music throws them open!
The music lifts me, hauls me now
through the portal to the peace at journey’s end.

©Susa Silvermarie 2024