At a poetry reading

Music is not poetry, tunes are not ideas,
nor are you, Alice Oswald,
Chopin or Mahler,
but this they have in common,
that I, of limited capacity,
wishing oh wishing I knew these sounds,
get next to nothing from hearing them cold
and write notes like this one as your voice fills the room,
looking earnestly up from my index cards
from time to time
to admire the performance.

[13 February 2015]