All That I Have

We’re in a busy shopping mall, very crowded—

this was before the virus—and an ordinary-looking man 

walks out of the crowd into the center of the atrium. 

He’s middle-aged, wearing a leather jacket, hands in his pockets. 

And he starts to sing. He opens his mouth and starts to sing, 

loudly and clearly. At first you think he’s crazy, 

he’s some kind of crank, but then you realize, wait a minute, 

his voice is beautiful, it’s powerful—he’s singing 

a famous aria—he’s singing Nessun Dorma, from Puccini.

This guy’s a tenor, this ordinary man who has emerged 

from the crowd is a tenor, and he’s a great tenor, and his voice 

is building and rising, and people are stopping and looking, 

the expressions on their faces are changing, people who 

would never be caught dead at an opera, who don’t have any idea 

what opera is, they’re stopped in their tracks. One little girl 

turns around and looks up at her mother, amazement 

in her eyes. O look at the stars, the tenor sings, that tremble of love

and hope, and his voice builds and builds, it rises to its climax, 

and he hits that final, high note, and he holds it, holds it 

until it’s ringing in the air of that crowded mall, and something 

transcendent has happened, something wonderful has risen up 

out of that ordinary gray day, something excellent and pure, 

and everyone knows it, they feel it, and they burst into applause, 

burst into tears. They clap and clap. And the tenor smiles, 

and looks around, then puts his hands in his pockets and walks 

back into the crowd. He disappears. O that I might hold

my one note and walk away! O that I might disappear!

 

Chris Anderson, Rattle # 82 accessed on December 27. 2023