Classic Poem

Where we are at a given instant
with respect to others we think of
who may or may not think of us
seems to form chords at times — silent,
to our ears at least,
yet intense as music —
on a board fretted with separate cities. We
are pressed down, one here, one there,
in our patterns. I can't help
wondering Whose fingers we are, cut or callused
on the steel threads of our days,

and what sound goes up,
or if no sound goes
and it's all wasted, the fierce
virtuosity vaulting us
one from another, and often
at great speed. If it made
music, perhaps then
it would be more bearable. Aeons from here
the stars too are trapped
in their chord-patterns the ancients
claimed made a music they could hear.