Maurice Ravel

FRANK O'HARA

MAURICE RAVEL

That in the living, the fastening

seashells onto skyscrapers, syncopating

the lozenges, oh beauty! indestructible

you have become by his hands.

The harmful distances of silence

somewhat abated, he can finally rest

in your brain companioned by tempestuous

thoughts, walking him up and down,

waltzing him round, always with

love and discrimination self-taught.

Removing the silencer from the gun

he shot agates into your eyes, fell

upon the weak cries of infants

with leonine roars from backyard fences

and did not falter before the bolero's

dumb desert. His wrist dripped oases.

If, at the untellable hour of quiet,

he had not put fingernail to

waterglass, what trees we'd've

turned to! fugitive, quivering.