On Bare Staves

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A bright and breezy six degrees,
New Year's Eve brunch-time savor,
sun behind yews occluded,

sibling sparrows gusting flit.
Look where the little flocklet sit,
seven notes in an elder-stave,
by straying lilts of bramble.

If I were a Bach what fugues might rise
from silhouettes of pausing birds,
cemented by sun-spark  to the eyes,
flitting over the FACE of twig parallels -

or Bruckner-up symphonic themes,
where brassy horns replace those horny beaks,
and piccolo the robin's tongue,
mid-string me a pigeon leitmotif,

let me float again in such music,
timeless as when a boy first did -
__________________________ assign
the cello to those gulfs of years
that separate me now from him.





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