The Space Before Again

Again can be a welcome.
Again can be a weary sigh.
The same word
carries a different weight
depending on what stands beside it.

In a possible song,
let the first return
come where the foot expects it.

Then wait.

A pause may gather attention,
or scatter it.
Its length alone
cannot tell the story.

The newer music notes
have turned toward these questions:
what repetition keeps,
what an interval changes,
how a pattern might remain
while its meaning moves.

The recordings are real.
The research is still a way
of asking more carefully
what the sound will do.

A journal has its refrains, too:
save the work,
keep the source,
come back with a better question.

Repeated care can make
a dependable shape.
Repeated words can also
wear a groove
too deep to notice.

So leave a place
for the unexpected answer.

Again,
but perhaps with a quieter voice.

Again,
with one part listening
while another leads.

Again,
and the familiar phrase
may open differently.

The next piece need not abandon
what the earlier one discovered.
It can carry that discovery
into a changed arrangement,
then let the actual result
be heard on its own.

After the pause:

begin.