Sketches by Michael L. Newell

From a ninth story window,
a man watched ribbons of snow
twirl, swirl, and slowly embrace,

as they found a path to frozen
ground dimly lit by streetlamps
shivering in a cold wind; behind

him Miles Davis and Gil Evans'
orchestra were barely audible,
as they played the slow movement

from Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez,
merging classical and jazz worlds,
as the snow outside merged death,

the inhuman, with a pure beauty
that took away the breath of the watcher,
as snow, wind, impersonal streetlamps,

frozen trees, and an occasional couple
drifting past hand in hand, created
a strange land of life, love, death,

and the inhuman, all filling one vast
impersonal canvas, and from the room
behind the watcher, the purest beauty

of sound flowed, indifferent to outside world;
from the watcher's eyes flowed one or two
tears; on street below one child stood, face

and arms lifted to sky, a wild smile curving
upwards, her arms flung above her head,
and her overcoat unbuttoned, windblown,

as night, snow, child, watcher, wind, and music
merged into a threnody mourning and celebrating
all there is, has been, might be, is lost, and can be found.

                        Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Winter 1998

 

Michael L. Newell lives in a small town on the Florida coast.  He has a new book due out shortly, Still The World Beckons: New and Selected Poems.