Forest Stories

but once managed to go to a symphony concert along with the well-dressed people

and the music was good

but something about the audience was not

and something about the orchestra and the conductor was not,

although the building was fine and the acoustics perfect

I preferred to listen to the music alone on my radio

and afterwards I did go back to my room and I turned on the radio

but then there was a pounding on the wall:

"SHUT THAT GOD-DAM*ED THING OFF!"

there was a soldier in the next room living with his wife

and he would soon be going over there to protect me from H*tler

so I snapped the radio off and then heard his wife say, "you shouldn't have done that."

and the soldier said, "F*CK THAT GUY!"

which I thought was a very nice thing for him to tell his wife to do.

of course, she never did.

anyhow, 

I never went to another live concert

and that night I listened to the radio very quietly,

my ear pressed to the speaker.

war has its price

and peace never lasts

and millions of young men everywhere would die

and as I listened to the classical music I heard them making love,

desperately and mournfully,

through Shostakovich, Brahms, Mozart,

through crescendo and climax,

and through the shared wall of our darkness.

That we forgive ourselves

For all the things