479 and 480
I walked into the room and knew at once
that its acoustics were the best I’d known
in all my life—even Apollo hunts,
like Artemis, for rooms as soundly thrown.
I cast my mind on all the songs I knew,
the ones I’d memorized, and those I’d not,
and, walking round the room through and re-through,
took in my breath to give it what I’d got:
and out the breath exhaled, with not a word.
No song today. No trill. Nothing at all.
These stones would be left untouched and unheard.
No choir of masonry from this wall.
Unechoing. The room can have its rest.
The echoes are all tucked inside my chest.
~~~
Apple Cottage (the pet store) iv:
The grand piano housed the cat Gershwin,
who was next for Winnifred to address.
He sprawled on the saxony, where he’d been
since his last life had left him quite depressed.
He shifted so his belly faced the sky,
and hoped that someone would play something soon.
Sometimes the store owner would come on by
and play a pretty piece or tender tune.
He creaked one eye just wide enough to scan
a glimpse of where the old man often was,
but saw, along the path of his eye-pan,
a sight that never failed to give him pause:
No brooding now, she spoke into his head,
as Gershwin met the eye of Winnifred.