the circle is two dimensional

there will come a day when the undertaker

will strip us of our clothes.

we’ll lie in brightly lit rooms on tables

of stainless steel unlike the tables we're used to

with nobody around unlike the rooms we've come from.

this happens to commoners as well as to

luminaries like Jayne Mansfield.

the population therein is bloodless and silent.

there is no praying. time's up. no one is vying for favored returns.

and unlike the pastoral images pushed our way by early

catechism pamphlets, small furry animal life is nowhere to be found.

––who then will lead us to the lamb of god?

residing in the here and now, the sonorous

mezzo opens the wrenching "Lament" of "les Nuits d'été"––

the collective whoosh of formal material accompanies 
as the first violins attack with the strokes of their bows
across the strings of their instruments.

with Frederica von Stade / Symphony Hall, Boston /  October, 1983.