THE FINAL NOTE

Somebody do something. Schubert's

Hair is falling out, drifting down

Onto the piano keys while he composes

His Opus Posthumous B Flat Sonata. He

Doesn't seem to notice, so intent he

Is on grand romantic gestures, six

Hundred songs behind him, nine

Symphonies, umpteen numbers of happy

Piano and somber chamber works, each

Satisfactory to him for maybe a day, each

A beginning, an art not thought of

But grown like leaves, like this last sonata

To which he affixes the last dead

Note, dum, and falls from the piano stool

At thirty-one in 1828. At your age,

Tom said, Schubert was already dead.