FEELING SATURNINE

I try to read a new book every week
A course of learning that is quite oblique
Lately I've been feeling saturnine
I repine
My favorite authors open me to feel
Empathy for those whose pain is real

Hemingway and Hardy
Dumas, Camus, and Weisel
Dante, Shakespeare, and Kafka
Steinbeck and Dostoyevsky 
Conrad, Chekhov, and du Maurier 
Goethe, Bronte, and Balzac
Forster, Flaubert, and Dickens
All raconteurs of transience 

I revel in the music that I hear
Sometimes it's dark and gloomy and austere
And it feels right when I'm saturnine
And repine
The pieces open me up and I feel
Empathy for those whose pain is real 

Dead Can Dance and Bauhaus
Orff, Grieg, Maazel, and Verdi
Echo, The Smiths, and Xymox 
Kate Bush and Joy Division
Siouxsie, The Cure, and Depeche Mode
Brahms, Mahler, Bax, The Stranglers
Pixies, The Clash, and Kraftwerk 
All raconteurs of transience

--May 2020, Ash Hall