The Musicians

A young Idealist a lover of
The arts one who has always
Known the deep ways of another's
Reality, hears lyric music rising
In a sublimely growing garden.
The young Roman poets
Imitating Ovid, Dante, Vergil --
erudite chit chat as the evening
Passes... de Caravaggio
Painting his masterpiece: musica,
For a long admired Cardinal del Monte.
While the couples dance in
The cool midnight hearing
The rolling music: his longing
Catharsis in the night. The young
Artist now wrapped in
The externals of a thisness:
Wailing his sharp edges
And angles against the tender
Human flesh of
Youth and Pleasure.
A young boy sits
Pauses tastes luscious
Sweet white grapes plucked
From a vine in the garden
...Sees the young musicians
So serene in the
Reading of their notes,
Listening so intently to every
Resonant sound, or
Lovely lyric heard
In the evening --
The birds are singing in an
Air of pious melody
To the brash young men
And the lovely tanned
Southern girls...
To the golden early
Morning glory proclaiming
Raphael.