She plays the flute in a house in the country,
not letting others hear her play; she is
very good, quite exceptional, practicing her
chromatic scale that bends upward to the sky
as the pear and cherry trees bend in with
dying autumn ears.  The attic is a cathedral
where notes of the E-flat scale ricochet back
to the gleam of the flute.  When she plays a
quick skipping song, birds become envious,
listening through the shingles– this human,
this soft doll, with her brittle wand, better
at what we were born to do, can she fly also?

She is beckoning a faun to come out of
the withering thicket by the creek, or some
new romantic beast from out of unharvested
cornfields, some translucent prince to follow
the music up the unpainted steps to her cold,
pyramidical, raftered room and recline till
all codas have completed.  She wants sprites
to weep, her tremolo to pulse through stone
down to underground rills.  The unmowed
grass quivers and bends toward the house
despite the wind – her graminaceous arena,
as she aims for high G beyond the sky.
                        

Farewell farm, good-bye yielding grass.
The skyline chipped and filthy approaches.
Fetid city kiss my ass.

The air was sweet from pear trees, alas
my heart had slowed on shady benches.
Farewell farm, good-bye yielding grass

that grew up to the ancient house that cast
a shadow of sour rot but not the stench as
the fetid city– kiss my ass.

I'll miss the tiger swallowtails that pass
my window searching for greenest peaches.
Farewell farm, good-bye yielding grass

holding the hoof prints of cows who trespass
from Gerlock's farm, the tabby just watches.
Fetid city kiss my ass–
 
six miles to go I dread the hoarding mass
of criminals, sloths and smoking wretches.
Farewell farm, good-bye yielding grass.
Fetid city kiss my ass.