Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, OVERTONE, by WILLIAM STANLEY MERWIN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

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First Line: Some listening were certain they could hear
Alternate Author Name(s): Merwin, W. S.
Subject(s): Mourning; Music & Musicians; Bereavement


Some listening were certain they could hear
through the notes summoned from the strings one more
following at a distance low but clear
a resonance never part of the score
not noticed during the rehearsals nor
prayed into the performance and yet here
with the first note it had been waiting for
holding silent the iced minors of fear
the key of grief the mourning from before
the names were read as they were falling near
the sound of what was not there anymore
all made the chords that in a later year
some still believed that they could overhear
echoing music played during a war

First published in The Kenyon Review, Volume 22 #1 (Winter 2000).
www.kenyonreview.org/roth







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