--Composer Harry Partch, September 1962--

Season of falling 
           petals.  Music follows 
                     me to my wanderer's 
refuge, this abandoned 
           hatchery soon to 
                     be demolished.
A beautiful lane
           of trees, their 
                     chromatic spectrum
of blossoms, little 
           anodynes of peace,
                     concord,
comfort.  
          They've bloomed
                     for six days 
and on the seventh
          must have tired 
                     of blooming,
as I walked 
          under-
                     neath a momentary 
array of timbres,
          scented air. 
                     Early morning, 
in the low-ceilinged
          office my instruments 
                     body forth
a phrase, a newly
          minted wilderness of sound--
                     tonal 
exercises,
          instrumental verses
                     for my 
chromelodian, harmonic 
          canon,
                     spoils of war,
kithera--verses for my time
            in Petaluma.
                      For crickets 
in hedges, chance 
            talk from neighbors 
                      at the post office
steps.  These daily 
            events nest 
                      inside my hand-made
instruments, 
            each
                      one a pathway 
to childhood
            Edison cylinders,
                      Yaqui Indian 
chants,
            Chinese music hall numbers 
                      I'd
hum
            in that Arizona border 
                      town.  Zuni songs 
now cloud 
            chamber music in the labyrinth
                       of my ear,
with sparrows 
            roosting inside disused 
                       chicken
coops which only 
            yesterday 
                       bulldozers
nearly finished off--
            their dark staccato
                       shaking the walls 
of my sanctuary.  

______

I improvise
on a diamond marimba
        work the mallets
over
      each resilient
block

of rosewood.

For the singular
        pleasures of touch,
the consolation 
                 in strangers I've
known--hobos, men 
I've made love to,

their joking asides.
                      And me
a composer seduced
into carpentry,
                this transient
life
by some desire

to return music to the body.  To
bring musicians
                 on-stage,
the delusion
             of the Furies
singing from their throats.

                    Meaningless 
in english, but not
        meaningless here

in the inconsequential,
satiric drama of

the white leghorn cockerel.


______



Andante cantabile--wind roused from
irrigation ditches,
         orchards.  Oh let me 

loiter, in these quarter notes,
ancient scales,
        the body rejuvenated--

I am the recluse bachelor in early autumn
air, breathing its narcotic
       of memory,

the dreamer that remains.  My window
open.  Hint of clouds,
       of blossoms,

traveling the wind's path, a wayward
route,
       to my blue-dark room--

______

to this outside music,
       my old longings,
corporeal,
       divine humors of rain and leaves.