To An Oboe Poem by Matthew Thorburn

If we can agree "there's a music for everybody,"
as Eric Salzman says, then yours
is mine. Double reed, narrow bell, dark shine

of grenadilla wood from the Mpinga tree,
I'd never confuse you with a clarinet.
Your "penetrating, brilliant tone"—I might

say arch, a touch reedy, though not so high
as a whine—seems at home with a violin, viola
and cello in this Quartet in F Major

by Mozart, though in my Webster's you elbow in
comfortably enough between obnubilate,
"to be cloudy, becloud," and obol, "the ancient

Greek coin or weight equal to 1/6 drachma,"
even if in the illustrative sketch you appear
to be played by Steve Martin. Still I hear you

best in the Peter and the Wolf I heard a dozen
years ago at St. Gerard's, in which you're the duck
who waddles, quacks and too quickly

gets gulped down for lunch by the bandy-legged
wolf skulking about in velvet breeches,
but not quite, not yet, not before

you paddle past once more in the cool dark
waters that flow from B flat below
middle C upwards for over 2 1/2 octaves.