I saw a flute made of glass.
The sun broke around it and painted it
the different colors of the day:
The man who made it said it was a special flute
There was none like it in the world
It produced its own sounds
and a music was composed to it
which didn't sound right on any other instrument.
The man who made and played it didn't look haunted.
I remember Paganini making a bonfire of his many violin concertos,
(These were manuscripts. No one ever saw them but the composer.)
watching the flames pick up so many notes
and throw them, ash and cinder, up the nineteenth-century silent night.
He might have hummed some of the burning tunes.
That music will never appear on CD.
When the glass flute is gone, I thought,
only its imprint will be left.
The man finished playing and we clapped our hands.
If I had asked him, perhaps he would have said:
I live here and now. You heard me tonight.
That's enough.
The sun broke on the ashes of the bonfire,
and on paganini, looking feverishly on,
Painting him the different colors of the night.