Aria | Nels Hanson

The music didn’t make the news
but drifted like perfumed smoke
from forest, meadow, small farm,
town, city, murmuring. Just then

did you hear it? Stray westerly at
dawn, rising, now falling, silently,
presaging neither drought or rain?
Cottonwood and nest intact, dark

leaves whisper the muffled lines
you later half recollect in dream
all day you’ll savor, lips shaping
to return a stranger’s kiss. Birds

understood, answered once and
flew to spread a song you never
heard before you recall a chorus
the world mislaid. Children hum

its tune by heart without surprise,
their parents afterward, listening,
so many wept. Among the great
a few recanted and broke down

and most adamant chose suicide,
a life’s work for naught. Others
burned their books, money, fine
cars. Rich walked barefoot into

streets, hands clamped to ears at
lyrics set to graceful instruments
the animals play in time, on key,
outside the story’s fire-lit cottage.

Indian Review | Author | Nels Hanson poems on Indian Review | Indian Literature & Poetry

Indian Review | Author | Nels Hanson poems on Indian Review | Indian Literature & Poetry