Before the Downbeat

The baton hangs above the orchestra,
and every musician becomes still,
bow suspended, breath held,
the first note hidden deep within the silence.

For one moment the hall contains
all that has not happened,
all that waits behind the lips,
beneath the fingers, within the strings.
A hundred players wait together,
each bearing a sound not yet born.

I know that place between the intake
and the release, that narrow interval
where nothing has broken open yet,
where a word may linger behind the tongue
and perish there, unspoken,
never to become part of the song.

The conductor's arm trembles.
A page lies beneath a resting hand.
The bow remains above the string.
Every mouth stays closed.
Silence crosses the waiting air.

Then the baton falls.

Sound enters the hall, and with it
comes the irrevocable passage of time.
One note summons another,
then another, until the music advances
toward the ending already concealed
within its beginning.

Still, I remember the silence before.

Not the silence left behind by music,
but that deeper absence,
that merciful instant
in which nothing has yet been surrendered.

The baton is raised.
The musicians are waiting.
The first note has not yet happened.

And for one breath,
before the sound comes to shatter it,
everything remains possible.