Who, Who Remembers Today

 

Who, who remembers still
that an oasis, secretly saved in time,
turns up here and there even now—
as, somewhere in a city toward evening,

to a piano, to music as to love,
on call from black to white,
someone sits down and, by heart,
plunges soul into silence after sound,

and with chords that, one with another,
bind clearly and smoothly,
the air ripples into shape for us

and, as with pearls in sea-shells,
the hearing fills with radiance from within
and the body yields itself to that offering.

Of the Vertical Accord and Arch

 

The Lyre erects its lucid frame
between the breaths that meet—
each string a path of flame
drawn taut beside her curve.

No hand compels it, yet it sings;
no wind can shake it, yet it stirs—
for every note that rises
threads the body’s furtive yarn.

The Rose will carve her scent
as the Lyre mints form afresh;
and where their currents join,
touch carries off time’s weight.

Through that fluent resonance
that speaks in vivid acumen,
wonderment and reverence fill
the floret’s ensouled point—

a temple beyond shade or sound,
like deepest night in bloom,
which only love, if eloquent,
can scale by bar and clef.

Persephone to Orpheus: No Matter What You Do, Don’t Look Back!

 

By the school they passed
each other with no more
than a single glance—
in denims under white,

the color of the sky,
a canvas of bright blue
turned upside down on earth,
below a thin, loose cloud,

still pristine for the sun,
like a poem fresh and fine,
sealed with the mirth of a smile.

Does she still walk like a song,
tracing tremors down the spine—
so fair she could dust a god?