Ode Without Joy

As the crescent moon describes an arc across the sky,
a silent symphony in the unseen shape of air,
at the zenith of the baton's rise,
its point ruptures the meniscus
between music and not music,
where the workings of the world wear thin
and our neighbours drum upon dividing walls
to complain about potential noise,
while beneath the skin there is an equipoise,
a diaphragm to keep it all together and apart.
As the baton falls, we take a forgotten breath.
There is a moment when it could be chaos still
and opinions are divided,
like the underpinning binary,
the on/off switch inside our heads.
For what is the difference between zero and one?
Is it just one or infinity?
The mathematics that can depict an arc
with precision has a music of its own.
We no longer play a tune upon a well chewed bone,
but the marrow has a memory for rhythm.
On the downstroke, something primal stirs
and as the moon was once a horned god,
so the crescent shapes a benediction
for a visceral hymn set to a stolen melody,
an ode without joy, once penned in silence.