Maya Bernstein
Tentatively – like a duck
on ice. With fury, immer
geschwinder. Like one who’s caught
in a sudden storm but continues
walking as before. Slowly.
The setting misty
and poetic. With the smell
of drying wool.
With great kindness.
With fury. Extremely fast.
Short, detached.
Speeding up. Slowing down.
pale and priest-like. Elegant,
graceful, like almost
nothing. With surprise,
as if you’re alone
for an instant. Andante.
Robotic. Like a nightingale
that you carry in your hands.
With pioneering keeping on-ness.
Vast.
Crescendo, your shouting-in-the-pub-
voice. Lively, drunken,
corpulent. Accelerando!
Like you’ve had too much
wine to drink. Like the body
of the instrument.
With a toothache.
Senza tempo: p. pp. ppp. ppppp.
Ever-faster, brave,
forceful. Very lonely.
Timeless, with less
metronomic precision
than a fragile flower.
Like a complaint, pursued
by a bear, morendo.
Note: “Paratext for Living” is a cento built from paratexts – notes composers make on their scores – from the works of: Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy, Mahler, Tchaikovsky; Aaron Siegel, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Erik Satie, George Crumb, Gyorgy Ligeti, Percy Grainer, Philip Glass; and Shakespeare, inspired by the NYTimes article “When Musical Directors Don’t Say What to Do But How to Be,” by Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim on August 19, 2025.
Maya Bernstein’s Maya Bernstein’s writing has been published in the the Beloit Poetry Journal, On the Seawall, The Laurel Review, Pensive: A Global Journal of Spirituality and the Arts, Psaltery & Lyre, Superlative Literary Journal, SWIMM Every Day, Vita Poetica, and elsewhere. Her first collection is There Is No Place Without You (Ben Yehuda Press, 2022). This poem appears in her forthcoming collection, House Woman: Who Can Find Her (Ben Yehuda Press, April, 2027). Maya teaches leadership and facilitation. Learn more about her at mayabernstein.com.