Listen to poem:
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.
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