(a lyric for Scriabin’s left-hand Nocturne, Op. 9 No. 2)
Morning, I hear you!
Your voice is calling across the oceans
of troubled night
and bridging heartache with mended plight.
Unprepared were we for dusks of “social distancing”!
Nocturnes will follow.
Each will defer to your first song.
They’ll spin its verses in roundelay
and frame the hours 'til break of day.
Nobody had planned for strings of nights like these!
From Mekong to the Susquehanna,
Afghanistan to Texarkana,
from Tel Aviv to Alabama…
‘Tis odd we never dreamed of this.
We felt that nothing was amiss –
that humans were in solidarity.
Modernity had set us free
and ended each aggrieved disparity.
But now…
Morning suspended.
Its drones are thrumming a restless tonic
of anomie.
Night’s bark is buoying you from me!
Unacknowledged spite has led to “social distancing.”
Uniformed nocturnes
that claim to be heralding your song
with choruses we cannot recall
to words from poets who gave their all,
staunchly unprepared for empty airs like these!
Nocturnes, be tuneful like the morning’s aubade!
Morning, keep sounding!
Sound your cheerful aubade!
Your hopeful aubade!
Your soulful aubade!
Your aubade!
Your perfect aubade!
- March 19, 2020 – at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic -