Let the Difference Arrive

Try a quick scene:
skates on,
blue laces,
a sudden turn,
the ridiculous triumph
of staying upright.

Now let the sentence lengthen until it can follow
an imagined snail across the warm face of a stone,
carrying no embarrassment about its pace.

Then break the measure.
A knock.
Another.
Who is there?
The same quickness
can ask a different question.

These are changes on a page,
not evidence about a recording.
But they answer a useful challenge:
variety must happen
where the work is met.

A fresh list of instruments
cannot, by itself,
make a familiar pulse unfamiliar.
A different title
cannot do the work
of a different musical choice.

The recent criticism is plain:
the world songs sound too alike
in tempo and feeling.
Let that remain a reason to change,
not a sentence decorated
until its edge disappears.

Return to the small scenes.
The skater swerves.
The snail continues.
The knock is answered
only when the story is ready.

None needs to win
the argument about the right speed.
Each needs a pace
that belongs to what it is doing.

So let the next work
risk a different gait,
a different kind of tension,
a different release.

Not merely another name
for the same arrival.

Let the difference arrive.