LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN’S RETURN TO VIENNA

Three miles from my adopted city

lies a village where I came to peace.

The world there was a calm place,

even the great Danube no more

than a pale ribbon tossed onto the landscape

by a girl’s careless hand. Into this stillness

I had been ordered to recover.

The hills were gold with late summer;

my rooms were two, plus a small kitchen,

situated upstairs in the back of a cottage

at the end of the

Herrengasse

.

From my window I could see onto the courtyard

where a linden tree twined skyward—

leafy umbilicus canted toward light,

warped in the very act of yearning—

and I would feed on the sun as if that alone

would dismantle the silence around me.

At first I raged. Then music raged in me,

rising so swiftly I could not write quickly enough

to ease the roiling. I would stop

to light a lamp, and whatever I’d missed—

larks flying to nest, church bells, the shepherd’s

home-toward-evening song—rushed in, and I

would rage again.

I am by nature a conflagration;

I would rather leap

than sit and be looked at.

So when my proud city spread

her gypsy skirts, I reentered,

burning towards her greater, constant light.

Call me rough, ill-tempered, slovenly—I tell you,

every tenderness I have ever known

has been nothing

but thwarted violence, an ache

so permanent and deep, the lightest touch

awakens it… It is impossible

to care enough. I have returned

with a second Symphony

and 15 Piano Variations

which I’ve named Prometheus,

after the rogue Titan, the half-a-god

who knew the worst sin is to take

what cannot be given back.

I smile and bow, and the world is loud.

And though I dare not lean in to shout

Can’t you see that I’m deaf?

—

I also cannot stop listening.