Jean L. Kreiling – String Poet

Shoes and Kites

(after the Prelude from J. S. Bach’s Suite No. 1 for Unaccompanied Cello, BWV 1007)

This music plays the ear. One low note, rich
and dark as leather, sends aloft a flight
of swirling melody at higher pitch—
as if a heavy shoe had launched a kite.
Adroitly lifted by a discipline
that liberates the psyche and the feet,
a crowd of kites unlaces air; they spin
in breathless spirals, leap and linger, meet
and part again. In seamless dignity,
each kite string fuses far-flung elements
that dance with audible agility,
each flight of fancy tied to perfect sense.
Seduced by steps along a knotless tether,
the ear imagines earth and sky together.

Jean L. Kreiling is a Professor of Music at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts. Her poems have been published widely in print and on-line literary journals, and her interdisciplinary essays on music and poetry have appeared in several academic journals. She has been a finalist for the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award, the Frost Farm Prize, and the Dogwood Poetry Prize.