The Flagstad Recording Poem by Geoffrey G. O'Brien

Control has been candied and exchanged
So many times it feels like the night
Of the day, a troubled ride through
A beginning whose motor announces
It's still the mild guardian
Of a human bird we don't yet hear.
She needs no protection nor exists
Except as a set of performances,
Notes mistaken for an identity
In sequence, much as we take quiet
Sounds to be an index of their distance
From the only place that matters.
This is not description but paraphrase
The voice does as contradictions,
New but old, certainly uncertain
About the decision to wear white
Though it's long after Labor Day.
In fact it's that other day in September
Never fully over inside the strings,
And this isn't time, more like the world
Premiere of an anticipation
Of an accompaniment that isn't
Paraphrase so much as the last
Chance at exhausted debut.