For Whoever Presses Play
A listener may arrive
carrying a day
the song knows nothing about.
Perhaps the morning went badly.
Perhaps there is good news
waiting behind an ordinary face.
Perhaps the only wish
is for four minutes
with a different rhythm.
The recording cannot choose
which life will meet it.
That is part of the space
your many musical directions leave:
a rough edge for one mood,
a soft reply for another,
something lively
without requiring everyone to dance.
These are hopes for an encounter.
The sound
still needs its hearing.
Now the requested work has a name,
a recording,
words and choices kept beside it.
The journal can show
how it was meant to begin.
What happens in a listener
belongs to another kind of evidence.
A pause might offer rest.
It might feel too long.
A surprising voice might welcome someone
or leave them unmoved.
Keep that freedom
in the finished thing.
Let the record preserve the making
without deciding
every meaning it must have.
Somewhere, someone may press play
and bring an unrecorded day
into those measured minutes.
The song can meet them there,
as it is:
available for attention,
open to judgment,
and able
to be heard again.
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