making the things that make man's life better
TRANSCRIPT
Making the Things That Make Man's Life BetterAuthor(s): Nance Van WinckelSource: The Iowa Review, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Spring, 2004), p. 18Published by: University of IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20155360 .
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Making the Things That Make Man's Life Better
A rare day of opened
curtains, and the crowd in the street
for once not squabbling but squinting, watching the blue-robed dons lift small flutes.
Their backs to the ornately leaded
glass windows, the old men
made the music ascend
... from plush blue depths, pitched toward steeper and
steeper heights, landing at last
on a precipice, where the players embrace?as if after long battle
a truce has been signed.
On a marble table the flutes lay
shining like silver needles
through which an impetus for great things once surged. The crowd is slow
to disperse. We stare up. Slow
to drain back into our lives
like oil into water.
18
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