Indian Summer

WHAT was the tune you heard on the way

that you must dawdle here,

cut a reed, like any truant,

cut crooked holes in the reed,

and dabble with burbling phrases

which can only tremble and halt

no matter how fearfully carefully you blow?

The tune you heard didn’t limp?

Time, you’re a dunce.

My word on it—

you could have

breathed echo when the air was near—

now it’s a wraith

beyond even tiny embodiment!

That amorphous haze,

arpeggic fall of those leaves,

glint of that bird—or was it a squirrel?—

(had it been a rat it would have bitten you!)

they ought to preach your heedlessness,

no man can essay a pavanne

with his phrases at variance—

it is a pavanne, don’t deny it!

And why propose a pavanne

when nobody dances pavannes,

and why ask a flute

to mimic the tone of a spinet?

Dear dunce—

your tune begins to sound feminine—

go away—

the phrases are exquisite daggers—

move along, move along:

we have all sought the same lady twice!