Swan of Tuonela

 

Swan of Tuonela

                                   

After Jean Sibelius

 

It’s the plaintive score that first drifted into

My ear and onto a sandspit where it stayed,

Like a conch, harboring sounds and releasing

Them at times such as this when I am given to

Remembering. Delivering me now to the time

Of your departing, and asking what I would give

To have you whole and once again in safe keeping.

But death calls us into, and not away from, this world

Where the cor-anglaise, haunting and unhurried,

Speaks with a grief too deep for words, floating

Above the shuddering strings in dusty sail, much

Like the mystical swan upon the underworld’s

Lamp-lit waters, cold to the wrist, nibbling like fish that

Fell into a young boy’s pockets and swim with him still.

 

 

John Muro

 

A resident of Connecticut, John’s a graduate of Trinity College, Wesleyan University and the University of Connecticut. His first volume of poems, In the Lilac Hour, was published last fall by Antrim House, and it is available on Amazon. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous literary journals, including River Heron, Sheepshead, Third Wednesday, Moria, Ariel Chart and the French Literary Review.