Rain-song for rogue women

Inspired by violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja

I think I might love rogue women who hold their music

under their chins,

the first symphony she heard was rain falling on her Moldovan or was it Austrian roof

and she was only four and maybe it was this same rain that gave her permission to walk barefoot

on a concert hall stage and play Tchaikovsky with a rainbow flag on her shoulder rest

and today I am listening to the rain-song, and

though we may be underwater soon,

I have lived so long on parched land that

I ask to be swept beneath the current

shocked, surprised.

and yes, yes ‘Surprise me….

if art ceases to surprise it becomes a dead museum.’*

*Patricia’s Kopatchinskaja’s response to a critique of her interpretation of Ravel’s Tzigane.