Where is Franz Schubert?

After all the socializing and merriment
and cocktails and grapes,
(and he wants grapes),
and a view from a deck
as evening recedes into a
gray felt studded with colored lights across the valley
and down the hill
and straight back to that white house,

and more imbibing and verbalizing,
and walking,
and hugging,
around a table
at a counter,
in a rickety plastic chair,
on Mission at 24th
as Rory sings
"Hark the Herald Angel Sings
Glory to the new born king"
on June 27, 2008 at 10:47 p.m.,

May I tell you
feebly, and in a manner insufficient,
and in stutter of second guessing,
and in a sensibility lacking heft,
and in a spirit of utter surrender,

there was a scratch in the earth,
there was a break in the clouds,
there was a rivulet running to form a sea,
there was a ray coming over the horizon,

at that first meeting,
on another day,
in another city,
at a concrete topped table
over different imbibing of martinis manifold
and utterances and reassurances manifest,
when you opened a door for me
and held my hand
and walked me through.

Never as before can be
the man I was before,
can breathe no longer,
can see no longer,
can taste nor smell no longer,
can no longer be in the same body,
can no longer be in the same mind,
has no longer beat in the same heart that you loosened and unmoored
with your touch
and your kiss.

Whatever the days of sun,
Or misty rain,
Or humid thunderstorms
Filled with lightening that
brighten the night
of fervid kissing,
of transcendent couplings
that revel in and reveal a commingled
puddle of the primordial,
that may grow into
a fern,
or a civet cat,
or an new heart in hearts
beating,
that brings breathing
that brings sometimes a Brahms Sonata for Violin and Piano
that brings sometimes a Bach partita
that brings sometimes a Beethoven bagatelle
and now
the breathing and beating bring
the precious and breathing and beating that is you.

For this,
ever heartened and
ever humbled,
I will always thank you.