Acoustics by Alan Cohen

Cloistral voices and footsteps
Tamped and reflected
Down the corridors of the Stedelijk museum and the centuries
Are what I become on my bench
Before all falls silent
As at a crisis in a ball game
After a chorus of the St. Matthew Passion in a cathedral
Or at the beach after a series of seven waves
When the water goes slack
And we hear continents breathe and sigh
 
What whispers in these stairwells
Is innocent of all pain and passion
Ambition drowns in it
Even science struggles for air
 
But this murmuring is a basin
In which the heart rests from its trials
To which the mind after it flights returns
From which all that is truest and best in us derives
A tree, well, fountain
True, beautiful, and good
Permanent though fleeting
Ours to choose

About the Poet:

Alan Cohen

Poet first

Then PCMD, teacher, manager

Living a full varied life

To optimize time and influence

Deferred publication, wrote

Average 3 poems a month

For 60 years

Beginning now to share some of my discoveries

Married to Anita 40 years

in Eugene, OR these past 10