JOHN BRINNIN'S MEMORY
(Sept. 13 birthday)

Attended Brinnin's lectures
on poetry's modern sound
his open ended
talks on Dylan Thomas
Eliot, Auden and Pound
from the Norton anthology
of English and American
poetry with literature's attention
to Robert Browning's verses
and Rabbi Ezra's character
in his finest dramatic monologue
of a wishing lyrical adventure,
then after my string
and cello class
I played a Gypsy air's solo
of Sarasate's "Zigeuenerweisen"
for Dr. Brinnin
(as a dialogue observer, critic
and a proctor of the violin)
it was a partisan selection
in an East European folio
with musical perfection
though with a comic laughter
to at least get in
a Roma -Klezmer's skin.