Safe Passage at the Symphony

By Alan Swope

While listening to “Night on Bald Mountain”

performed by the San Francisco Symphony

The hall a Roman galley pulled
by rowing bows, guided 
by the conductor’s baton.
Its hull a haven from a world of losses.

Billows of sound surge toward, 
around the silver-haired listeners
as they plunge through timeless waters.
So many old, drawn here.

Each note a familiar surprise.   
Thundering timpani pound inside
the chest. French horns intone menace,
cymbal crashes streaks of lightning.

Three widows, each in a long
blue gown with toga folds,
wedding diamonds heavy on
frail fingers, 
huddle together, 
perched atop an ocean swell.

Each moment of rapture 
promising the music will flow 
as ceaselessly 
as the tides.

Alan Swope’s poetry has been published in Cantos, Cider Press Review, Evening Street Review, Front Range Review, Medicine & Meaning, Mixed Mag, Perceptions Magazine, Poetic Sun, Roanoke Rambler, and Steam Ticket.

He is a retired psychoanalytic psychotherapist and an emeritus professor with the California School of Professional Psychology. Alan enjoys singing, acting, travel, cinema, and gardening.