Breakfast Music

 

Years ago she listened to classics radio for breakfast,
and today, in a flash of nostalgia, she picks it again.
 
Breakfast with Bach climbs the walls with the A minor violin
concerto, only to float down and climb them again.
 
Last night she learned her electric bill doubled and nearby flooding
caused five confirmed deaths with two children still missing.
 
Bach turns somber with sustained notes boxing in a lone violin,
whose solo cannot overpower it, cannot break its march.
 
Today Russia stops allowing Ukraine to export its grain through
the Black Sea, and the tiny bread-basket continues to resist.
 
The single violin rises up, then skips down the scale to join
the sustained notes, and then to burst free again.
 
She feeds her cat, warms yesterday’s coffee for a minute 
and a half in the microwave—too long.  It boils over.
 
Nearby flash flooding continues for a third day.  Record  
heat sizzles the southern USA states with over 110 degrees.
 
The melody escapes again, insisting on itself.  It will not be 
drowned.  It turns the sustained note into a partner.
 
She finishes her coffee.  

 

My blog poems are rough drafts.

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© 2023 Susan L. Chast