There is a real live aeolian harp about smack in the middle of New Mexico. I saw a picture of it online some years ago, and in 2004 decided it was time to go visit this living art piece. It was conceptualized and built by a medical doctor turned astronomer, Bill Neely, and his friend Bob Griesing, during June and July of 2000. The owners of the Traditions Shopping Center in the Mimbres Valley commissioned its construction and installation, and not long after they let it fall into disrepair.
It may just be a thing of metal to most, but to me anything that harnesses the wind or manifests music is itself alive, and this does both. And not just alive, but conscious and life-affirming. It was a sad thing for me to find it there, like a wounded animal, still facing the sand-blown wind to play its injured song.
A week after I visited this neglected oracle in January of 2004, I found myself writing this poem, my 10th terzanelle, in Flagstaff, Arizona where I was waylaid on my way back home by a nasty cold.
Aeolian Strains
Neglected with a broken string, the harp turns toward the wind,
And plays the subtle song of distant desert moods;
A song that’s lost amid the sound of reckless worldly din.
This singing weather-vane, the song of which would soothe,
Stands in a field of novelties, an oracle ignored,
And plays the subtle song of distant desert moods.
An art piece with a living soul, from mystic magic born,
The voice of whispered dreams, harmonic and serene,
Stands in a field of novelties, an oracle ignored.
In random moments brief, the mad rush grants reprieve,
Enough to hear the vibrant strings exhale with gentle breath
The voice of whispered dreams, harmonic and serene.
Or, gusts are sprung upon the chords that bring a bold caress,
Where heavy song is raised in timbres manifold,
Enough to hear the vibrant strings exhale with gentle breath.
She’s like a fallen angel, lamenting all alone—
Neglected with a broken string, the harp turns toward the wind,
Where heavy song is raised in timbres manifold,
A song that’s lost amid the sound of reckless worldly din.
Publication History:
Illuminations — Spring 2005
