Hayden's Symphonies

All afternoon the symphonies
of Hayden clog the radio,
slow note after slow note crawling
into my room and fainting
like many damsels in distress.

I'm reading about the entrails
of a landrail dissected by
Gilbert White: "so soft and tender
in appearance they might've been dress
like the ropes of a woodcock.
The small lank crop contained mucus,
the thick gizzard filled with shell-snails.
No gravel, only the snails." He
quotes the cry as "crex,crex,"
and cooks and eats his specimen,
relishing most the liver.

Best eat nothing of superior
instinct or accomplishment, birds
so masterful in their grasp
of navigation,geography,
and self-sustenance we should blush
with shame for our ignorance
and lack of grace. Hayden,
unlike most of us, possesses
both grace and instinct. Like Mr. White,
of the same dolorous century,
Hayden believed that creation
belonged solely to God, those
created in His image merely
transcribers, at best.

                    The notes
litter the floor. I stumble
to the teapot and fill a cup.
Addling the brew with milk, I see
how crudely one thing follows
another: the gutted bird flopping
through the vacuum of the cosmos
where Heyden's symphonies unfold
in the only space adequate
to do so many diffident tones.

-- William Doreski