A circle of chairs
Voices of aged ladies
and an Adam.

Outside the circle
a young woman, smiling,
with a guitar.

She greets each by name
as they approach slowly
from the dining room

and settle in their chairs

In the biblical vapors
kindness, sweetest
of the small notes

in the world's ache,
most modest and gentle
of the elements,

entered man before history
and became his daily
connection, let no man

tell you otherwise

The playing begins
on tremulous strings
Heartily she sings

and calls on them
with her eyes,
her urgent being,

to sing along,
she will sustain them.
Her young spirit,

undaunted, pleads
to stay old age,
to disregard all odds

and obliterate it,
calling on song to help,
and faintly one voice

responds and a few heads
nod to the strong beat,
but Adam's eyes are closed

and some have one eye open
and the other X-ed out
as in a cartoon.

When the song is over,
there are little smiles
here and there

and the faces are not
quite so cheerless
Slowly then the ladies

stand up and disband,
lumbering by as before
When he saw me, Adam

stopped a moment
with a friendly look
as if glad to find

a man to chat with,
but he's had a stroke
and is now forever

about to speak.

Another time, another singer,
of majestic girth under
Calpurnia's headpiece,

looking straight ahead
into the space
of Handel and opera

as she pleaded with Caesar
not to go to the Senate
that day (never mind that

after the event she moved
his money and papers
to Anthony's house. . .

we have Plutarch's
word for it).
In any case,

the style was the thing,
full-bosomed, heroic,
industrial age or no.

God, how she sang,
very erect under
her crow's nest,

leaning back slightly,
defying all modern modes
and the small hairs

on my back tingled
and I felt cold
inside and faint.

Wife, if music be
the conduit of death,