MUTED SNAKE COUNTRY, |

SOLITUDE

Being all alone
is easy.

It's the solitude of two—
that's hard.

TURNING

Few come back from Death,
To tell us of its sound.

A timeless turning
About the sum, the rest.

MEANING

It costs the oboist nothing
to pass the purity of her sound
onto the rest of the orchestra.

OF BELLS & THE NIGHT WATCHMAN—
a long-line sonnet

In celestial circles, it is a matter of some moment if and when
The human family will melt down all their earthly weaponry
And reforge cannon balls into bells. We have both the promise,
And the Science. Even necessity. This is not the necessity of guns,

But more that of love, finally learning how to take wing,
To sing, to listen:—the deeply full, resonant bell. O Feminine form
Set in motion by sharp spark of masculine energy, we hear
Sustained all the vowels of all the languages of the world,

Yet from mere projectiles of war, we hear but the deafening roar
Of bent and disfigured men. Bells, true Libertarians of Sound,
Ringing out in all directions without bias, like waves in a pool.

From a high tower above Lausanne in the Alps, a night watchman
Cries out the hour to the four winds as a great city sleeps below.
Who hears? If the dead could step back into Time, they might tell us.

| download mp3
OF BELLS & THE NIGHT WATCHMAN
[6.4 Mb] The music heard at the beginning is
from my MOONSTONE (for vibe solo) & at the end, THE BELL,
both are available on AMAZON or iTUNES

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my little book of aphorisms &
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