Long Poem Excerpt

I have been working on a long poem sequence which may go on for some time.  Some poetry comes quickly. These poems feel like sculpture to me. Like terracotta or clay, sometimes marble, chips flying here and there. I thought I would share the sixth in the sequence.

-A lyric sadness in the air. Mozart?

Or Haydn? Almost sounds like Arvo Part.

-She is superb this busker near the curb.

-A balm for equine meditated flight.

-She raises all our darkness to the light.

We join the crowd. The pigeons we disturb

Advance and peck the concrete looking lost.

Our coins, festina lente, tempest-tost.

 

The sharps and flats and pitch are anchors thrown

To still our stride, like snares of sound our own

Hearts recognize. Becalmed in placid seas

Of melody, she bows us into port,

Slow sarabandes for landfalls soft. They court

Our wayward variations with a breeze

Of interlude. You take my arm and draw

Me on, exempla of Newtonic Law.

© ralph patrick mackay