Spring Song

from: "The Calyx of the Oboe Breaks", by Conrad Aiken: "The calyx of the oboe breaks, silver and soft the flower it makes; and next, beyond, the flute notes seen, now are white and now are green." . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The ides of March have gone and come. Still, strains of vernal music sound clear echoes, in my ears, of early times, of other years: an orchestral swell of oboe, flute, and violin. The feel of warming wind, the scents of orange blossom, daisy, buttercup, and clover I once enjoyed -- are those days over? My recent times are flavored with metallic clank, with oily odor -- my eyes fatigued by newsprint and small-screen glare. And music: the blare of claxon-horn and siren-wail and, sometimes, noise which issues from a box borne on shoulders through the street; an empty, but compelling, quite insistent, loudly pulsing beat. I welcome all new, although slight, intrusions. Pale sensory perceptions bring back images, now faint, once acute, of places, times, and pleasures past. Faded sights and faces and shadowy, unquantifiable pursuits evoke a time when love, like freedom, didn't cost a dime.