What if all the sound
You ever heard existed
As a memory

© jameshoustonarts 2025

The above senryu was sourced from three experiences:

Listening to a National Public Radio (NPR) program, I heard a segment of a weekly piece called From the Top where the host performs a classical piece of music with young musicians/composers, usually aged in their mid-to-upper “teens”. Afterwards, a conversation ensues regarding the adolescents beginnings in classical music, instrument of choice, aspirations, scholarships and the piece of music the host and they had recorded together. In one segment, the host remarked, “But, of course, that was Late Beethoven.” He was referencing the years in which Ludwig van Beethovens sense of hearing was in serious decline.

On a recent visit to Toronto, I passed by the looming, Bloor Street edifice of the Toronto Conservatory of Music where my grandfather, Frederick J. Horwood (D.Mus), had a studio and office, taught and invigilated piano and theory exams for many years and where he wrote several books on music theory, harmony and counterpoint; my siblings and I continue to receive royalty checks from Alfred Music Publishing as these books, years later, remain in print & circulated use. It was in this building where I first heard the story, fact or folklore, of Beethoven removing the legs from his piano so that he could hear the notes via the vibration with his ear to the floorboards.

And, the third source is the accompanying camera image. The majority of my written poetry pieces start with a visual image and take form and content forward from one of my photographs. This is Chilliwack Lake, British Columbia in Canada on a grey, pre-dawn morning which held a silence that perhaps even the maestro, in a silence of his own, might have appreciated.

April 12, 2025