Trombone
Published in Poem Of The Day
for Mari
There were carols on the kitchen radio, a late
cold night, entering the room
while straightening the blistered Navajo rug, I
remembered suddenly what the first eight notes
of hark, the herald angels sing felt like
vibrating through my body that first time-
I was eleven and unprepared,
I remembered when I was ten
and fainting in church from the sweet ammonia of Easter lilies
hosing my nostrils with fragrance
and also the emptiness of it-the lord of the dance,
in an arc of agony, up on sticks...
About this poem
"Oddly, though I had no gifts as a musician, when physically making music I always enjoyed the way images volunteered in my mind along with the music. I believe Denise Levertov wrote an interesting essay on this with respect to Rilke and cows crying out in wild pasturage-also something about playing the grooves on the inner skull of human beings with a cactus stylus in the early tradition of the phonograph. Anyhow, I think it's safe to say that, for my family, my music lessons in the house were very painful, like hanging from a cross."
-Norman Dubie
About Norman Dubie
Norman Dubie is the author of "The Quotations of Bone" (Copper Canyon Press, 2015). He teaches at Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz.
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The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day[at]poets.org.
(c) 2016 Norman Dubie. Originally published by the Academy of American Poets, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate
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