Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, CAVATINA, by JEFFREY LEVINE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

CAVATINA, by                    
First Line: It may be there's a time of day when everything
Subject(s): Beaujolais Wine; Beethoven, Ludwig Van (1770-1827); Composers; Love - Nature Of; Music & Musicians; Obsessions


It may be there's a time of day when everything
is cool and silent, the day itself cool and silent,
the kitchen lights barely on, or not, say,

a morning, summersoft, the single cypress
swaying in something only it can feel,
the bread in its basket, the linen in its drawer.

Everything put away and the day not even started --
peace like calligraphy, the stars set, just now
lighting fishermen through another world.

It may be such a time exists though I can't find it,'
Lord knows, not even in the Cavatina movement
of Beethoven's last quartet.

Should I say that it is short,
it is short and incomparably beautiful?
Would saying so make a difference?

Or should I say that while listening, I'm obsessed
with the spelling of Beaujolais, which I cannot seem
to manage without a dictionary, though

I can remember the taste of each growth,
the graininess, near nobility for such a slight wine,
of a Brouilly from a decent year, or the hint

of raspberries in a good Fleurie.
Or should I say that Beethoven died
before the first performance of this work,

or should I say only that I have not, even so,
given up my obsession with love?
That is a possible thing --

possible as cistern, possible as caique,
accessible as fountain, as easily plucked
as frankincense, sensate as sea urchins

with their long spines, idling red-tipped
in the shallow tidal pools.
In my obsession, I have the whole piece by heart

so that its layers line my chest until its parts
are overwhelmed and driven out by the perfect Beaujolais
or by the astonishment of sex or by cool

silent incipient love itself. That,
or the obsession with its slenderness so palpable
that I confuse passion for the real thing,

and who is there to tell me which is which
or even which vices are permissible and which not,
what wine to drink, what bread to eat, why

this obsession with knowing that singular possible thing?
That culpable thing. That frail thing. That frail,
findable, culpable almost possible thing with a hint

of raspberries and even a near nobility for such a slight thing,
out there in the back country roads Sundays in early morning,
everything quiet, everything cool, its tail sprinkled with salt.


Copyright © Jeffrey Levine.









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