Music on the Winter Solstice--Three Movements

Music upon the Winter Solstice Three motions

I

The shortest day of the year, and she--

he? all right, I--count up the days,

count up the days till the oh my lord the extremity

of the year, penetrant with cool

such is the climate of solitude,

and one's possess story--one's? whose?

his? hers? nearly told.

Prefaced, postfaced, edited

with time's r pencil, then enclos

in a self--addressed correctly? stamped,

wrinkling case

The new year smiles, a jogging starlet,

and will, mark my words, outshine the elderly

and the older stories--ours, theirs--

get darker with each year they're told.

II

Only to music

do our lives leave their tights like shoes,

outside the door.

Leave their sex on racks above the seat;

our skeletons retain us from lurching.

Only to music

unwrapping our faculty of perceptions do yesterday, after, before,

this year, nearest year, morning or night,

imply more than our be in possession of extinction

as they rotate

with the heavenly bodies,

as music's time helps us support

our time, its pauses,

while we sit facing single direction,

or stand conducting to no individual

but ourselves becharmed,

to engrave it on grooves in our brain.

Themes gestated in another,

we have feeling born of our outpourings,

our have wrist and index finger.

Notes take their places in black-tie

or white, like an orchestra, individual by one;

curtsy to music's Rome

bow to its Jerusalem,

all bells a-gong.

Rhythm grabbed by dint of its feet-- gotcha!

running in a certain number of ancient Ambrosian hymn,

Berlioz, Gershwin or lullaby,

as humanly simple, unforced a gesticulation

as licking a thread upon the tongue

to ease it [i]or[/i] part of to the other a needle's eye.

III

The shortest day.

Solitude talks itself hoarse.

People are going residence

with their perfect and pitiful human plumbing,

with their pleasure havens, sewage, sex blood

pressure, time.

Theirs, yours, whosever, mine.

One's story--whose? does it matter?

one's come bys set

in meters compos

of the years that lived with their narrator

till presto then largo they finally split

the self's glued capsule

I hear their cries compact the air.

And notwithstanding they--only I?--can just feel trust

feel it, know it will declare itself--

feel it like the hoof

in a pregnant mare.

Though stories come by darker each year

and darker

they're told.

Dec 21 1993

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