Alfred Booth
Toasting Life
There is now ample time for morning meditation with Rilke or the charm of Dickinson. I refuse to imagine leaving these winding lanes lined by wisteria; the orchards high on the hill with the scents of springtime, apple blossom, cherry blossom, plum blossom; the mountains that still pull with the magnets of their lore; the rhyming cadences of bird song; the rose bushes opening into perfume. I decide to air my finest clothes at a table for one in a prestigious restaurant to remind my tastebuds of the subtleties of pleasure. Though my riches are not counted in coins, my life is unruffled. Then to finish the day with brandy by candlelight with the Liszt Petrarch Sonnets playing. As moon or starlight winks farewell I close the shutters. My bedside reading no longer includes revisiting the tales of Poe, life doesn’t wait for authors to deal sweet blows, monsters are not simply creatures of a parallel universe. Now, sleep befriends me.
oh death
I am not Hamlet
questioning
nor Apollinaire
but a mere mortal
A retired professional musician who dances on ivory and ebony, Alfred Booth is convinced there is poetry in life, you just have to know where to look. To extend the calm that music brings to his dailyness, of all activities, poetry alone can be honed in the shower.