Beethoven, by Ferdinand Schimon, 1819
Bonn, Beethovenhaus
Ludwig sits,
Impatient at my
Self-conscious
Scribbling,
Trying to catch genius
In a few swift strokes.
The deafness
I had expected.
But the stare
And the stark
Intensity of purpose –
These have unnerved me.
In his head
He is already
Pounding out
The first chords
Of his B-flat sonata
The Hammerklavier.
No matter
That other mortals
Cannot hear
What he does,
For we could not comprehend
Such insanity
He fidgets,
His lithe mind slipping
To thoughts of
His nephew
So recently ripped away –
The sting of that loss.
And I know
Our session is done
With his face
Rough sketched
And no sense yet of his eyes.
They must come later.
I leave him
His back turned to me
Counting out
Exactly
Sixty coffee beans, as if
He never saw me.
Penguin Poems 