I love J.S. Bach’s musical “inventions,” which are short compositions which Bach composed for his students to learn keyboard mastery. They’re logical… in the way that scales are, with each note coming properly after the next, and coming into a lovely, restful conclusion… and they’re also… complex. I ran across a poem about them, and it just… sings. Don’t we all wish our busy, complex, chaotic lives were made into something so orderly and wise?
Bach Invention
by Jane Tyson Clement
If I could live as finished as this phrase,
no note too strong; each cadence purposed, clear,
the logic of the changing harmony
building and breaking to a major chord
strangely at home within a minor web
of music; if I could define my end,
from the beginning measures trace my course,
I might be old and prudent, shown by laws
how to devise a pattern for my days
and still be free, unhampered, yet refined.
He sat before the keys and turned the notes
into a fabric of design and peace;
here are the notes, the keys, my fingers free
to run them through their course, and here my mind
seeing his wisdom work within the chords,
finding his knowledge in the finished line.
I would be wise if such restraint were mine.
1939
Smith College, Massachusetts
Poetry Friday today is hosted by Molly at Nix the Comfort Zone which is a most provocative blog name! Have a good weekend – rest and reorganize.