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rejectomorphAt some point during my Saturday evening nap I was woken by a peal of thunder, but I didn't stay awake. There seemed to be no point in staying awake. The world was dim and darkening, and there was nothing to draw my consciousness out of its protective shell of sleep. A couple of hours later I finally did wake up and get up, but only because I got hungry. After eating something not very interesting, I settled down for a night of looking at not very interesting things on the Idernet until I got sleepy again, which I have now done, and so I suppose I will go back to sleep, in which state I will not worry about how dull I've become.
Or perhaps I was always dull, and simply needed more experience of the world in order to realize what a dull part of it I was. Either way, going back to sleep seems the most interesting, or at least least dull thing I can do. And of course there is that bit of bedtime chocolate. Much more interesting than dinner. There is likely to be more rain while I sleep, and more blizzard far away in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Snowpack is at about 80% of normal for the date, so we hope March will continue to be cool and wet. I'm hearing a few drops fall right now. If it picks up it will make a nice lullaby.
Sunday Verse
by Billy Collins
It was Adolph Sax, remember,
not Saxo Grammaticus, who gets the ovation.
And by the time he had brought all the components
together— the serpentine shape, the single reed,
the fit of the fingers,
the upward tilt of the golden bell—
it was already 1842, and one gets the feeling
it was also very late at night.
There is something nocturnal about the sound,
something literally horny,
as some may have noticed on that historic date
when the first odd notes wobbled out of his studio
into the small, darkened town,
summoning the insomniacs (who were up
waiting for the invention of jazz) to their windows,
but leaving the sleepers undisturbed,
even deepening and warming the waters of their dreams.
For this is not the valved instrument of waking,
more the smoky voice of longing and loss,
the porpoise cry of the subconscious.
No one would ever think of blowing reveille
on a tenor without irony.
The men would only lie in their metal bunks,
fingers twined behind their heads,
afloat on pools of memory and desire.
And when the time has come to rouse the dead,
you will not see Gabriel clipping an alto
around his numinous neck.
An angel playing the world's last song
on a glistening saxophone might be enough
to lift them back into the light of earth,
but really no farther.
Once resurrected, they would only lie down
in the long cemetery grass
or lean alone against a lugubrious yew
and let the music do the ascending—
curling snakes charmed from their baskets—
while they wait for the shrill trumpet solo
that will blow them all to kingdom come.
Or perhaps I was always dull, and simply needed more experience of the world in order to realize what a dull part of it I was. Either way, going back to sleep seems the most interesting, or at least least dull thing I can do. And of course there is that bit of bedtime chocolate. Much more interesting than dinner. There is likely to be more rain while I sleep, and more blizzard far away in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Snowpack is at about 80% of normal for the date, so we hope March will continue to be cool and wet. I'm hearing a few drops fall right now. If it picks up it will make a nice lullaby.
Sunday Verse
The Invention of the Saxophone
by Billy Collins
It was Adolph Sax, remember,
not Saxo Grammaticus, who gets the ovation.
And by the time he had brought all the components
together— the serpentine shape, the single reed,
the fit of the fingers,
the upward tilt of the golden bell—
it was already 1842, and one gets the feeling
it was also very late at night.
There is something nocturnal about the sound,
something literally horny,
as some may have noticed on that historic date
when the first odd notes wobbled out of his studio
into the small, darkened town,
summoning the insomniacs (who were up
waiting for the invention of jazz) to their windows,
but leaving the sleepers undisturbed,
even deepening and warming the waters of their dreams.
For this is not the valved instrument of waking,
more the smoky voice of longing and loss,
the porpoise cry of the subconscious.
No one would ever think of blowing reveille
on a tenor without irony.
The men would only lie in their metal bunks,
fingers twined behind their heads,
afloat on pools of memory and desire.
And when the time has come to rouse the dead,
you will not see Gabriel clipping an alto
around his numinous neck.
An angel playing the world's last song
on a glistening saxophone might be enough
to lift them back into the light of earth,
but really no farther.
Once resurrected, they would only lie down
in the long cemetery grass
or lean alone against a lugubrious yew
and let the music do the ascending—
curling snakes charmed from their baskets—
while they wait for the shrill trumpet solo
that will blow them all to kingdom come.
