It's Still Life

5 Vivaldi’s Winter — L’Inverno (1st Movement)

Prologue for the Deaf Listener:
This project (multi-part) is written with the deaf reader in mind. It translates orchestral movement into embodied language. These words are the sound of cold becoming a lash. Bring on the wind with teeth of glass, biting bare branches into prayers of splinter.

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5 Vivaldi’s L’Inverno — (Winter) The Reckoning of the Mind
The Reckoning (of the mind)

The wind loosens its bow,
less pressure on its string.

You stand.
Too fast.
The world tilts, white and loud.

Blood rushes
into its narrowed lanes.
Pain sparks, bright, electric,
and you laugh,
because you can.

Fingers sting.
Toes screaming inside your shoes.
The body objects
to being played alive again.

Still,
you move.
You stomp warmth into the ground.
Test the pitch of your weight.
Flex.
Count what answers.

This is not comfort.
This is proof.

The cold has not gone;
it has only stepped aside to listen
as you stand there,
ringing,
unbroken.