"ballade pour l’orchestre"

ballade pour l’orchestre

a flute afloat where buffleheads glide green
and aubergine in F major and it’s already March;
observe, the oboe emerges, this Bb hummed
in some tongue that concedes blue and green are the same
and why does dogwood spring maroon from the clarinet’s bell
under April’s Alice blue clouds and flurries of swans?
while May’s full bassoon and moon modulate up a tone
singing the burden of Time’s impossible color

though June comes soonest, the cello drowsy where willow weeps
and blackbirds do not snooze through dawn’s puce verge
but violas drift on a Sunday drive through
cherry blossom Sunday perfect skies crooning A 440
for the violins to echo come July, oriole brilliant
counterpoint to croquet mallets’ crack, but
the double bass snores terra rosa under August’s umbrella
singing the burden of Time’s impossible color

see here: two French horns in blackberry bramble tangle
where September’s brass beds and wind-up clocks arabesque
though trumpets in any key flash folly red as the last rose
nods her head and another moon’s left hanging,
a whole note sounding throughout October as geese veer past 
and pay no mind to the timpani among November’s
dotted quarter notes and crows on so many fence posts
singing the burden of Time’s impossible color

in winter, theorbos and bangles and raindrops
and Davy’s gray sky and harmoniums in the fog:
ancient music and vox humana harmonic minor
singing the burden of Time’s impossible color


A.K. Barkley
© 2012

 

Image links to its source
"Stilleben mit Musikinstrumenten und Früchten" (Still Life with Musical Instruments and Fruit") - Cristoforo Munari (1667–1720)
Wiki Commons - public domain