Shostakovich: Preludes And Fugues

I dreamed I fell into the river of music

it was moss green and very swift and then it was slow

there were ice floes the river was almost frozen

it was the preludes of Shostakovich and I must have 

been there a long time in the unwinding of the fugues

as if I had forgotten myself entirely, where I came from

what language I spoke who knew me

I found that I could float looking upwards at Orion

but the music was sombre

it became an ocean and then a lake or the mist of one

the mist was moss green and then from other planets

or a planet in between

I could no longer float but only drift

the stars were completely in the music

they could not depart

the heart was in the music

the depths the sombre quality was impossible

to leave

and the gnarled trees

that I had seen before

in some other country

incompetent to translate

mary angela douglas 1 february 2021