After Ravel’s Concerto for the Left Hand,
composed for Paul Wittgenstein, who lost
his right arm in war.
A reader, as abstracted as a star,
detects rewards a secret bard erases:
cadaver, tattered bearers, bearded faces,
affected vertebrae set ever far.
A beggar feasts; a starved stargazer sees,
refracted as a desert tear—a raft,
a scattered seaweed sestet, severed draft,
sweet water terrace, eager treeward bees.
As fear, regret, dread, rage reverberate,
a ravager regards a fated crest—
a stage, a braggart’s target, a daft test—
as sacred art creates a cedar gate.
A reader reads deft verses as exact,
as faceted as Frege’s tesseract.