Thunder and Lightning Winter

[Bach] died of a stroke (after an unsuccessful eye operation) in 1750, at the age of 65, and was buried in an unmarked grave.
~Chris Zimmerman

This is the wrong time of year for thunder and lightning (it's usually performed in March or April -- Good Friday), but I liked it with the poem, so here it is:



Bach Winter
by Jane Mead

Bach must have known—how
something flutters away when you turn
to face the face you caught sideways
in a mirror, in a hall, at dusk—

and how the smell of apples in a bowl
can stop the heart for an instant,
between sink and stove,
in the dead of winter when stars

of ice have spread across the windows
and everything is perfectly still
until you catch the sound of something
lost and shy beating its wings.

And then: music.