Each Note Waiting

by Bruce Boston

Beethoven
before The Fifth.

Leonardo
before Mona.

Billie Holiday
before heroin.

Adolf
before Chamberlain.

Hemingway
before the corrida.

A pride of lions
before the kill.

Shakespeare
before Picasso
before The Stones.

The Peloponnesian
before The Prussian
before World Fires.

The Martian Landing
before Centauri Three
before First Contact.

Each refrain
a string of notes,
each note waiting

in the wings
of time and space
to be born.

Appeared in Shades Fantastic (Gromagon Press)