Spring Song

The ides of March have gone and come.
Still, strains of vernal music sound
dumb echoes, in my ears, of early times,
of other years: an orchestral swell
of oboe, flute, and violin;
the feel of warming wind;
the scents of orange blossom,
daisy, buttercup, and clover.
Are those days over?

My recent times are flavored
with metallic clank, with oily odor --
eyes fatigued by newsprint
and small-screen glare.
And music: the blare
of claxon-horn and siren-wail;
noise which issues from a box
borne on shoulders through the street;
an empty, but compelling, quite insistent
loudly pulsing beat.

I welcome all new, though slight, intrusions:
pale sensory perceptions bring back images,
now faint, once acute, of places, times,
and pleasures past.
Faded sights and faces
and shadowy, unquantifiable pursuits
evoke a time when love, like freedom,
didn't cost a dime.