POULENC'S DAY
Jan. 7 birthday

Sitting with my Aunt Sarah
and my Uncle Scriven
with our box lunch
being famished
for tomato juice, pomegranate
a cheese Danish croissant
a Russian styled knish
and an assortment of summer fruit,
after I had my violin lesson
at quarter to eleven
then a solfege class in theory
with Lenny Bernstein
recalling the laughter
of his master class
on good days at Tanglewood
in Lenox, Mass.
with all the ardor of youth
here in the concert shed
hearing Poulenc's Stabat Mater,
the art director together
with the conductor
all in white sear sucker suits
watching as the chorus and choir
are on the upper stage,
we're eyeing the birds
as uncle Scriven opens for me
a book of ornithology
now just a childhood memory,
suddenly hearing the last words
of Jesus to brother poet St. John
on his exiled journey
to the Isle of Patmos
to take care of Mary his mother
with his last ten words
still alive to sing for us
from our lively last visit
to the springs by the monastery
in the garden of Gethsemani
weeping by the cross of pardon
at the Kentucky Abbey
with the poet Tom Merton
over a bed of rosary.