Time gives little mercy, and wavers in taste. Like reverberating strings, it Is suspended by hollow, restless darkness. Tossing and fighting The stillness, I found your chronicled pieces: resonant, incendiary. Deeper: your Best phrases scratched out—all the purged pages. You were the Critic you despised the most. In your fire, copies still survived And spread from desk to desk to the wood of my piano stand. Practicing Patience, I absorbed those unsingable lines. Swollen with The melancholic melodies, notes resounding night—the Best time to feel alone—Ear bent, studying you, my first Teacher—flowing sound to my fingers through tingling veins. — Frédéric Chopin