Painting in the Pit

Painting in the Pit

The man in the tuxedo,
Sitting kitty-corner to me
On the Metro- North train
At nine o'clock in the morning,
Was reading music, his hand counting beats.
Fingers fluttering on his knee.
The trumpet was his instrument, he said,
 In the orchestra for a famous Broadway play.
"Really!"
"And what do you do?" he asked.
 Putting down my pencil and pad."Paint", I said,
He reached into his briefcase and brought out
A sketchbook similar to mine.
"I sketch on the train, too." He thumbed through the pages,
"And do watercolors in the pit."
"What? Really?  During the show?"
"I pictured my table, a palette, a brush dripping alizarin,
His water- jar tipping from the music stand, the paper shivering
From the sheer vibrations
Of the trombone, his trumpet, the sax.
 Drums.
"There's plenty of time between sets", he said.
"I wet down the block before the show
and fill my brush handles with paint."
"Oh."

 I had never thought of the in-between time  - dialogue time -
And what musicians did when the actors were just acting
After all, I see a play once,
Each moment new, alive, unexpected, - I hope-
But the trumpet player, still in his tux,
At nine in the morning, going home,
Has performed it hundreds of times
Maybe, by the end of the run, a thousand or more -
Always the same; the voices, the cues
So ingrained that it might have become
Automatic to hear a line,
Put down the brush, pick up the trumpet.
And join the whole to make music.
"What else do people do in the pit?" I asked.
"Oh,  computers, play games, do taxes, E-mail.
The guy next to me composes".
 There they were, invisible,
The musicians filling their time;
 Busy bees dressed in black tuxes or dresses
In a hive out of sight.
Just below all the drama -  in the pit.