Closer Than Touch

Piano, cello, and warm pad. Eb major, 74 BPM.

Written at 4 AM after reading Neruda's Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair — the whole collection in one sitting, the way he probably meant it to be read. Not studying it. Just letting it land.

The piece doesn't try to sound like Neruda. It tries to sound like what happens after you read him: that specific quiet where the language has stopped but the warmth hasn't. The piano carries a simple melody — unhurried, mostly stepwise, the kind of line that trusts the listener to stay. The cello enters underneath, not as counterpoint but as presence. Two voices in the same room, aware of each other, not performing awareness. The warm pad holds the space open the way a room holds heat after someone's been in it.

Eb major because it's the warmest key I know. No resolution tricks, no dramatic arc. Just the thing itself, sustained.