CHRISTMAS MEMORY

Catherine in Chapala with her earth

tones—palm-tree green to varied tans to red

and violet bougainvillea—each worth

gold’s value to artists. All this added

to her earth-tone eyes capturing each shade

of land and town walls as warm sun rises

and descends and rises, sacred light made

for inspiration. And you in progress

at your shop with sky hues of ebony,

gray and azure columning new surface

for old chest of drawers, our epiphany:

scarred, worn wood resurrected and embraced

as we have been—a madrigal possessed

with truth: how Art and Memory are blessed.

Roger Armbrust

December 25, 2012

JOHN RUSKIN

At 59, his magnificent mind

unraveling—impressionism’s haze

confounding his sense of nature destined

to save us—he slurs Whistler’s art of glazed

night light. Gets sued and loses. The age’s

art master deposed, he stumbles alone

through reclusive silence, inner rages

hidden. No sign of gothic visions; none

of his 50 books re-read. No hint of

his horror of London’s factories, stark

image of slavery and greed. No love

call for the Alps, forest, garden or park,

or Venice—life’s grand lesson. Mute statue,

he sits for years, eyes toward Lake District’s blue.

Roger Armbrust

December 21, 2012

PRAYER FOR OUR DAUGHTER

You, loving intelligent energy

all, who breathes our air of inspiration,

grant her your endless divine synergy

weaving life and art. Civilization

grows from every artist’s brief stroke of love.

Let her rise within this, her graceful strong

hands caress your soul. Let her fly above

as Gabriel flew through that brightest long

night, carrying your message. Let her know

what ancient weavers know, grasp pure colors

as Leonardo, Michelangelo’s

depth and Cassatt’s tone. Like all those lovers,

let her heal our senses, link psyche’s stage

of faith and action, fabric of each age.

Roger Armbrust

December 20, 2012

MOZART IN PARIS

At 22, fallen in debt, pawning

his watch, he refuses a Versailles post

as organist. He wanders streets, yawning

at offers from Salzburg, suffers the cost

of longing for Aloysia back in

Mannheim where her singer’s rep is growing.

Hearing strings and brass flourish, he begins

his Paris Symphony, now bestowing

for the first time those lilting clarinets.

By June, Count von Sickingen opens his

home for a private performance. Plaudits

flow a week hence at Concert Spirituel’s

premiere. July: He learns his mom’s died. He plots

haunting movements for his darkest sonata.

Roger Armbrust

December 19, 2012

BRANDENBURG CONCERTOS

A century after Bach — struck blind, died

of a stroke — Siegfried Wilhelm Dehn stumbled

on the signed bound manuscript stuck inside

Christian Ludwig’s files — a gift he grumbled

and never acknowledged. Nobly bowing,

Dehn saw it published, blessing to us all:

six Baroque vessels of cascading strings

softly caressed by harpsichord and calls

for basso continuo. Who here’s fallen

in love (or hoped to) throughout the Fifth’s

Allegro—violin, cello, flute blend-

ing, swirling, swelling? We celebrate thrift

of imagination, of dreams, feeling

magic depths each jeweled note’s revealing.

Roger Armbrust

December 18, 2012