Double Parking Poem by gershon hepner

DOUBLE PARKING WITH SCHUBERT


If Haydn warbles, Mozart coos
while Beethoven is barking,
but Schubert is the one to choose
if you are double-parking,
because the only horn he toots
is one that calms us as we spread
ourselves like glockenspiels or flutes
along his endless riverbed.


Inspired by a conversation with Robert Layzer, MD from Mill Valley, CA (415 388 8227) on 6 27 03, following my praise for a poem he had published in JAMA on May 28,2003. He told me that he was a retired neurologist who had published a poem in one of the first issues of Paris Review. We discussed out favorite composers and while we agreed that Haydn’s clarity is superlatively appealing, we also agreed that we could not live without Mozart of Schubert. Beethoven was a question mark. I agree with Schnabel who said that he played Beethoven for a living and played Schubert for pleasure. “Haydn warbles” recalls the last lines of his JAMA poem, Haydn-Quartett:

When the time came, I could not stop his rush
To heaven. Such impatience! That was twenty
Or thirty years ago, and still I suppose
He is listening, listening, much as I do now
On this balmy evening, here by the Pacific,
Listening to Haydn warble about heaven.

6/27/03