Theodore Enslin
The Glass Harmonica
It snowed in far country
north and
beyond the trees.
As I went through the mirror
my breath froze
clouding it,
and they saw me no longer
in the villages of spring.
I walked alone
across level plains,
and my tracks disappeared
in the snow which went with me.
A wind rose
playing on harpstrings
and reeds.
There was nothing there, and my fingers
touched ice.
A music
a music
an echo of music—
sound not a sound
in the quiet north country—
the snow.
l
Vespers
That time in the early evening,
a cold sunset gone—
colder than I remember
a year ago
at apparently
the same time—
the time when cars
go by, one after another.
Purposeful, not speeding,
just to get home.
My neighbors are tired
and hungry
For what
do they hunger?
beyond a break in the day,
in from the cold?
A warm dinner.
What more do they want?
Where do they turn?
Words fail.
They cannot tell me.
If they could
I would not hear them
going past
down
this ordinarily quiet road.