Overture

OCTOBER 1984

LINDA PASTAN

OVERTURE

This is the way

it begins: the small

sure voice of the woodwind

leads us down a path brocaded

with colored leaves,

deep into a forest

we almost remember.

And though the percussions

have no exact equivalent,

soon we will find ourselves

thinking of weather-

a cold front rumbling in-

or of applause,

not for the self

but for someone we watch

bowing at the edge

of a pond whose waters,

like the cello's

darkest waters, part

letting the melody

slip through. This theme

presents itself so shyly

that when it returns full grown,

though it plucks

the live nerve of recollection

we will hear it

as if for the first time.

Make no mistake, this is only

music, shading with evening

into a minor key.

Whole flocks of birds rush up

spreading their night wings

as the harpist, that angel

who guarded the gates

in strict black, sweeps

her arm from E to G to high C,

and the bowing stranger

lifts his wand, letting

the curtains part.

AT MY DESK

To William Stafford

How many times

I have sat this way

with the poem's intractable silence

between me and the world,

with the tree outside the window

refusing translation:

my leaves are more than syllables

it seems to say.

I think of you

miles west

floating on the tide of language

so easily, giving only

- a scissor kick now and then,

coming to shore

some unexpected

but hospitable place.