The End Of Lovely Days On The Moon And Aranjuez Poem by gershon hepner

THE END OF LOVELY DAYS ON THE MOON AND ARANJUEZ


My cup is small, Rodrigo
declared, because his ego
was not a giant tankard.
It seems he never hankered
for fame like some composers,
and poets, of course prosers,
yet his Concierto now
is holier than thou,
for Armstrong had it strewn
upon the distant moon,
to demonstrate to all
mankind whose cups are small
that with their handicraft
they may prepare a draft
that with small steps attains
a drink the whole world drains.


Written on the day that Neil Armstrong died.

Pablo Zinger writes about Joaquín Rodrigo, the blind Spanish composer who was born in Sagunto, Valencia, on November 22nd (the feast day of St. Cecilia) 1901 and died in July. His Concierto de Aranjuez has taken in more royalties than any other Spanish work, including Falla's 'El Amor Brujo, ' and was taken to the moon by Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin in 1969. He suffered from the criticism was not avant-garde, a criticism to which he responded: 'My cup may be small, but it is from my own cup that I drink.' Zinger ends his article: 'Wherever you are, Maestro Rodrigo, here is a toast: May you be smiling and drinking, from a small cup of your own.'

My poem reminded Dave Leonard of a line at the beginning of Schiller's Don Carlos, written in 1787:

Die schönen Tage in Aranjuez / Sind nun zu Ende ("The lovely days in Aranjuez have come to an end") .

These lines might make a lovely epitaph for Neil Armstrong, and led me to change the title of this poem from "Concierto de Aranjuez on the Moon" to "The End of Lovely days on the Moon and Aranjuez".


8/25/21 #11185