Songs of Boyhood Memory
The Flautist
Up the scale and down again
At half past four, like clockwork, day by day
I practised to become my boyhood hero’s shadow
And master the music like him
His bumble bee was sure and even
Mine a breath-filled child-like race
With flute and mouth like an adolescent egg and spoon
In imperfect and precarious
Imbalance
In school halls and classrooms I clapped my hands
Producing my own syncopation, beat by beat
My music, chromatic shades of an unformed man that,
Too young to know the beat of love’s drum,
Swayed in time to romantic rhythm, as yet un-danced.
Soon, far too soon, the daily ritual stopped and for while, all joy, too.
Older now, I have once more sought to emulate the great, and content now
With my own experience in music, play again,
For me.
January 2007
At half past four, like clockwork, day by day
I practised to become my boyhood hero’s shadow
And master the music like him
His bumble bee was sure and even
Mine a breath-filled child-like race
With flute and mouth like an adolescent egg and spoon
In imperfect and precarious
Imbalance
In school halls and classrooms I clapped my hands
Producing my own syncopation, beat by beat
My music, chromatic shades of an unformed man that,
Too young to know the beat of love’s drum,
Swayed in time to romantic rhythm, as yet un-danced.
Soon, far too soon, the daily ritual stopped and for while, all joy, too.
Older now, I have once more sought to emulate the great, and content now
With my own experience in music, play again,
For me.
January 2007