June 28, 2020Philomel, or, Too Much of a Good Thing
Ravi Shankar has arrived and I am charmed.
At first. Such inventiveness and stamina. But
this avian Miles Davis has set up stage
by my garden fence and will not stop
from red-rimmed dawn to yawning blue night.
The air is corona-clear, human competition banished.
Oum Kalthoum in a tawny feather gown
is lifting a creamy breast for the longest song,
all the way to the gods and beyond.
The driving rhythms of Anna Meredith,
percussive riffs, a Ginger Baker on a branch
untiring, unrelenting, unremitting, primal desire.
I am not who you want, this tin-eared audience of one.
I’m fast lost without the old four-four,
the three-minute melodies. If only I could find a female,
a fecund thrush to still your throat at last.
I would ply her with the finest beetles, worms and berries
and she would judge your endless composition and, my exhausted wish,
deign to be your mate and make a nest far, far away.
And I and my tin ears will rest again.
from Poets Respond