Pain
My body never really knew what pain was
until it knew pain. The soul has its hurts too,
but the body, when it knows pain, timidifies
the soul. Emanuel Ax can play Brahms
all he wants, Yo-Yo Ma can play Bach,
Hillary Hahn Beethoven, it doesn’t even matter
who’s playing Schubert: everything harmonizes
with the sound of pain when pain conducts.
Pain’s not merely a teacher: it’s an emperor.
I’ve dwelled in its empire now for months,
take it from me. Once a man has risen in pain,
he will revise the painless years (imagined? real?)
into a kind of heaven. Now I’m sitting here,
only a slight pain in my back, another
down my leg. It feels almost like paradise.
I don’t know who’s playing Vivaldi
on the radio— I think it’s Itzhak Perlman,
playing one of the Concertos. It doesn’t
really matter: Whoever it may be, it
sounds beautiful from here.