Monday, August 24, 2015



Mozart at Seventeen 
Claire Keyes 

I’d done it again: locked out of my car
that evening after the concert.
No friendly red salute as I flicked the unlock icon.

No keys and my stupid car remained indifferent
while I made the dreaded phone call
to my husband with the news

and could he come to the rescue.
The only bright thing that night was the symphony
Mozart composed at seventeen,

the year his father brought him to Vienna
to seek a position in the court of Empress Maria Theresa.
Only Salieri had won the keys to the court

and there was nothing for Amadeus.
So what does he do?
He attends the symphonies of Haydn,

glorious and inventive,
and over a period of weeks produces a music
filled with restless, angular melodies,

the oboe and flute freed into colorful bursts
that force the violins to yield. Only in the andante
does he settle into more introverted passions.

He was a teenager after all, destined
to trump Salieri, some say even Haydn.
Though he doesn’t know this at the time.

Maybe suspects it, so that three centuries later
as I was walking towards my car one evening
after a concert, fishing for my keys,

Mozart seemed to whisper: In clarity lies the serene.


....................................................

Yeah.

in clarity lies the serene

clarity
clearness or lucidity as to perception or understanding; freedom from indistinctness or ambiguity

serene
calm, peaceful, or tranquil; unruffled:
a serene landscape; serene old age 

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