⸻

(spoken, calm, authoritative)

Attend now,

for sound hath memory.

What once was written

in candlelight

returns clothed in thunder.

I speak not to the past,

nor wholly to the present—

but to the space betwixt.

⸻

I set my hand to keys and wire,

not to please, but to awaken.

What sleeps within the hollow ear

is stirred when form is shaken.

They named it “proper,” named it “pure,”

and bade the pulse be tamed,

yet still the rhythm sought my chest

and beat me into flame.

⸻

Mark this well—

for art doth breathe,

and breath must break its frame.

⸻

Let the measure bend, not bow,

let the ancient speak to now.

I take the order, break the seal,

and teach the sound how truth should feel.

What once was stone, now learns to move.

What once was still, demands its due.

⸻

They heard my name in velvet halls

where echoes dare not stray,

yet never asked what storm might rise

should silence be betrayed.

I learned the rules, then learned their cost,

the weight of flawless form.

Perfection sings, but only pain

teaches thunder how to storm.

⸻

Attend again—

for harmony

was never meant to kneel.

⸻

Let the measure bend, not bow,

let the ancient speak to now.

I take the order, break the seal,

and teach the sound how truth should feel.

If heaven listens, let it learn—

creation burns, because it must burn.

⸻

I do not mock the fathers’ hands,

nor spit upon their grace.

I merely ask that living art

be granted breath and pace.

For what endures is not preserved—

it moves, it errs, it grows.

The score survives not by restraint,

but daring what it knows.

⸻

Let the measure bend, not bow,

let the ancient speak to now.

I take the past, refine its fire,

and set it loose through steel and wire.

What once was bound to powdered wigs

now walks with bass and broken ribs.

Time itself shall not deny

what lives because it dares to try.

⸻

Thus ends no tradition—

only its slumber.

For sound, when honest,

is never old.