Largo
Schubert was poorly. Sun motes danced an arc
Of emptiness over the lens of Vienna, and staves,
Rivers of them, purled towards the brute frontier.
Romance is the kindergarten of savagery.
Striving for health, music presses backwards
Against time, against the walking woods
And bleached-out sunlight of tomorrow—tomorrow
Morning worst of all. A clear lens, a stave
Crowded with sharps and signatures, opens
Onto a hastening multitude in old clothes—they
Were the music, once upon a time, returning
Ragged and boisterous from Arcady.
Schubert is among them, youthful and macabre.
The sun is the Romani walking beside him.
–Donald Revell
from Canandaigua by Doonad Revell (Alicer James Boks, 2024), a book that b”compounds itself of archaic beauty and immediate freshets, of fair vigils oof praise aand invention.” — Angela Ball
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Author: The Best American Poetry
