Guests chat and smoke, pacing their day
with masterpieces until October.
They stroll or read, play billiards,
sprawl on sofas, hearing some chords
maunder through the keys
like the breath of watered roses
from his room.
It’s sunny and opens on the best purview,
a circle pond ringed with smooth stones
and two great oaks guarding white shutters
with tendrils of green vine curling
around the recessed door.
You enter it—
the clock behind the escritoire floats
on its moon-phase calendar under a chandelier
with flaming finials where the summer sostenutos
come to rest.
And in the evening, like a glimmery star,
the first uncertain version
of a melody. Askold Skalsky, Maryland, USA
