Apples in Winter

Sample piece from Apples in Winter

Each summer you forsake the conservatoire,
your study of Wagner,
for the woodlands of carpathia, to hop
fromvillage to low thatched village
lugging in your humped knapsack
an Edison Home Phonograph;
then sitting cricket-like
beside the open fires to coax
from shepherds and swinherds
their ancient music; the needle
incising on wax cylinders
notas and folk dances and the chirping voice
of a forester's daughter singing
shy love-songs in her mother's kitchen.

In the deep, insect-singing night you dream
of the concertos you will compose,
a music half-way between
Wagner's Tristan
and the grasshopper's agitated love-song