Reverie

In those moments between catharsis and dreaming  

in the soft amber glow of the lights 

when my fingers wander on piano keys searching for vagabond melodies

traveling from nocturnes to blues

and return to familiar lands, notes stitched into muscle memory—

If I catch the thunderous current halfway between rage and despair 

rippling relentlessly through Chopin’s Revolutionary Etude,

or I capture the fire within Piazzolla’s tangos so you can almost see 

bodies whirling in scarlet dresses to the pulsing bassline in a sweaty Argentine ballroom 

I can’t help but wonder:

Isn’t it alchemy, how sound undergoes that elusive and ineffable transformation to become music? 

How pressed keys strike hammers on strings to create vibrations;

how vibrations lift off, oscillating through air,

twisting and turning into melody? 

How, magical as stardust, melodies can make us feel, connecting us like constellations—

neural networks as complex as nebulae 

bypassing all conscious will?