Kurt Vonnegut loved music
because it had the decency
not to explain itself.

Nobody asks
what position it takes
on capitalism.

The drummer hits the snare.

A trumpet plays B-flat.

So it goes.

Vonnegut imagined once
human beings communicating
without language,

which seems reasonable

considering what language
has accomplished.

Wars. Contracts. Campaign speeches.

Music had another proposition.

Here is a vibration.

Here is another.

Put them together.

See if you feel less alone.

He played clarinet,

the instrument most likely
to sound like a duck.

Perhaps that’s why
he understood artists.

You practice for years

to become capable
of making something

that disappears
the instant you make it.

A note. Gone.

A whole symphony

vanishing successfully
for two hours.

The universe is doing
the same thing.

Someone invents bebop.

Someone else complains
it isn’t music.

Then everybody dies.

So it goes.

But before that happens

a piano waits
in somebody’s living room.

A child discovers middle C.

An old woman remembers
a song her mother sang.

A saxophonist takes a solo
and accidentally plays

something he has never
played before.

For eleven seconds

the universe
doesn’t seem meaningless.

The band keeps playing.

Nobody has solved anything.

Perfect. Vonnegut smiles.