For dVerse Poets Pub – Where Kim is our host.
I’m hosting Poetics today at the dVerse Poets Pub and we’re taking our inspiration from Samuel Barber’s ‘Adagio for Strings’.
Our challenge is to write a poem that expresses our thoughts and feelings on listening to this piece of music OR describes the music in words OR explores the music through imaginative imagery or storytelling.
Where the Music Goes
Do not ask me
why I am crying.
There are no words
where this music goes.
It enters somewhere
beneath language,
beneath memory,
beneath the careful places
where I have folded grief
and tucked it away.
One violin begins—
and suddenly
every empty chair
is occupied again.
Every hand I could not keep
finds mine.
Every voice I thought forgotten
whispers from another room.
Even the animals return,
soft paws crossing
the threshold of memory,
horses breathing
against my shoulder,
and for a moment
nothing is lost.
The strings rise.
So does everything
I have survived.
Love.
Fear.
Birth.
Death.
The unbearable beauty
of having been here
long enough
to know the difference
between holding on
and letting go.
Higher—
until my chest
cannot contain it.
Until grief and gratitude
become the same thing.
Until I no longer know
whether the music
is ascending
or I am.
And then—
it breaks.
Not violently.
Like a wave
finally surrendering
to the shore.
Like hands unclasping.
Like the final breath
of someone
who knows they are loved.
Silence.
But not emptiness.
Something remains
where the music was.
Perhaps this is why
we cry at beautiful things:
because beauty knows
what we spend our lives
trying not to remember—
that everything we love
will change,
that everything we hold
must someday be released,
and still,
we choose to love.
💜
https://www.blenza.com/linkies/links.php?owner=dversepoets&postid=08Sep2026a&meme=12476
My new song is out on streaming platforms.
https://ditto.fm/silenced-but-not-broken
With love, coffee, poetry, and stardust,
— Maggie The Afterlove Voice 💫
If you want a reading, send me an email:
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