June 10: Make-up Post, Robert Gibb, "Spirit in the Dark"

Last Friday, I neglected to post a poem I liked.  I had one picked out, but I never got around to keying it in.  So, since I have a little extra time this afternoon, I thought I'd share it with you.

It was written by a poet named Robert Gibb, and it was first published in the journal Prairie Schooner.  It was chosen by guest editor Mark Doty to be included in The Best American Poetry 2012.

Saint Marty hopes it doesn't scare you too much.

Spirit in the Dark

What to make of the night we sat up late,
Listening to Beethoven's Ninth

In that otherwise darkened apartment?
The New York Philharmonic

Was gathering together the fragments
At the fourth movement's start--

Momentum they'd ride like a wave
Through the fanfare and final chorus--

When we felt something else enter the air,
A front in the weather of the room.

It sat us upright on the edge of our chairs
While it tracked toward the record

And hung suspended for a measure or two
Above the still point of the stylus.

Then, just as steadily, it withdrew,
A patch of fog that had been burned off . . .

The look the dead raised on your face
Must have been the same on my own.

"What was that?" our expressions asked.
Decades later, I'd still like to know.

And what changes, if any, were played
Upon us?  And did any of them take?

"Be embraced," the chorus sang,
And then the crescendo and kettledrums,

The whole Ninth welling before us
Before fading as well from the room.

Anybody just feel a chill?