The Earring

Seeds slide up my windshield and over

the car—scattered arpeggios. 

I’ve lost an earring, a misshapen pearl,

expensive gift from a friend. 

Already I’ve searched the floor

of the car and crawled down two sidewalks.

In Leipzig, Bach supervised boys and

brought his pen to page after page

of beautiful paper. Back in a restaurant,

I pull out my chair and find nothing.

For more than six years Bach wrote a cantata

every week, copied it out, led the choir.

Pages of his orderly library, sold for scrap

when he died, turned into wrapping

for cheese and meat and fragile trees,

swathed against cold all winter.

One hundred forty cantatas turned into dirt.

People step into sunlight and take off

their jackets.  Across the street a building is

down: piles of lumber and gravel.

Barbara Daniels' book, Rose Fever, was published by WordTech Press in 2008. She received two Individual Artist Fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a Geraldine R. Dodge Fellowship to the Vermont Studio Center, and an MFA from Vermont College.