for Kate Maher, 1920

Where does music occur—in the air
being played, in our ears being heard,
in the instrument being performed,
or on the page as notes on a stave?
Is each recitation a matchless moment,
as the air, the ear, and the instrument 
alter, and the end note completes itself?

I won’t indulge the romantic notion
your life was easy, Kate, but I do imagine
your love for your daughter, Joanna—
I imagine the kind of optimism to which
you might yield as you raise a pail of well water 
from darkness, or when, on bleak midwinter 
mornings you tend to chores on the farm—
search beneath warm-feathered rumps, 
or times you who might plant your song 
like a fertile seed in a matchless moment of life.

You are more than the notes men made
in this sorry archive, you are more
than the act that took air from your lungs.
You are more than a footnote in our history.