Canarini #2 Poem by robert dickerson

Singing, I suppose, for the reasons we do-
because his heart is full and his soul is alone
because he hopes in this wide blue creation to
garner an ear to hear and share and groan-
for troubadour sole wages fit or due.

Infants, nuzzling the noontide breast
hear his tender chantey half-asleep,
open their dazzled eyes a moment at most
then back into foamy sopors slip
cowed by the richness of the feast.

Lovers, learned in the humid arts,
good students of Ovid, their limbs entwined
or in their leaf-limned bowers fallen apart
pay his imprecatory cant no mind,
exhausted by the conning of their parts;

Dreaming elders...