E Eugene Jones Baldwin

Fanfare for the Common Bird
 
The brass section arrives
By airbus
(SEIU Swans Local 1)
The members practicing
“Some like it Cold”
On a theme of Jean Vaillant 
 
Redheads and chickadee-do-das
Passing out programs
Ushers crowing
The noisome audience duded up
in snow white and tie dye all
Speckled and capped
Black striped feathers and
Berrysticked beaks
 
The Pope rose-robed
For the consecration
The stage set in the wetlands
The rushes the blues notes
And wind instruments
For the premiere of
“Birdland” in D major Opus 2
For trumpets and winds
 


All Sound is Music
 
As I walk through the woods
I conduct Camile Saint-Saens’
Symphony Number 3 in C minor
Left-handed (me, not Camille),
The organ finale, the cascading scale.
A young woman, fast walking, earbuds blaring 
Passes by the waving lunatic.
 
The muddy streams are flooded,
A clot of ribbon snakes sun themselves.
Cottonwoods shed their seed
Parachutes, landing in the fast water,
Sail toward the river’s lock and dam.
 
Carolina wrens and mockingbirds and finches
Sing Vivaldi, key Duke, scat Miles, pluck Esparanza,
My New Balance 510 shoes tapping.
 
 
 

E Eugene Jones Baldwin is a journalist, playwright, poet, and essayist. Recent publications include: "The Genehouse Chronicles" (book, life along the Mississippi River), Passager Literary Magazine (memoir), and "A Black Soldier's Letters Home: World War II" (book, with James Killion III.)  Baldwin is an Illinois Underground Railroad historian.