Intensity as Violist

That she was not pretty she knew. The flowers delivered into her hands post-concert by the young girl, pretty, would be acknowledged only. To display was to invite comparison. Skilled at withholding, she withheld; it was a kind of giving. As when meditation is a kind of action, a way of leaning into music the way one leans into winter wind, the way a mule leans into a harness, the way a lover leans into the point of deepest penetration. After a ship’s prow cuts the water, the water rushes back twice as hard.