The Difference of Touch: In D Minor Kv 466 and Variations On a Theme of Paganini

the robin hops from the tips of the rose bush spilling snow dust sprinkling skeins of early dew dusting with its uppity tail fan a caterpillar softly dousing concertina then it trips up the clothesline stops and grips it in its claws sways and balances with its tail fanning out chirps clucks tweets and repeats itself all the way down again and up the scale comes back once more to skip a note or two and tumbles sweeps past the old toy bicycle leaning against the wire fence the claw marks hardly visible on the spray of frost-like snow on the balustrade light ephemeral peripatetic the dulcet flexions rising and falling on the tympana without breath of motion or vibration crisp colliding notes rising and falling as the first tentative drops of drizzle before the rain the robin gone to sing full throttle on wing © T. Wignesan, Paris, 1997; from the collection: “Poems Omega-Plus”, Paris, 2005.