SKETCH FOR A STILL LIFE WITH SAXOPHONE

What a quaint notion–that life could be anything but kinetic, frenetic, in full swing! But let’s have a galvanized steel bucket of ice sent up & see what happens. Something to shine, to gleam. And a wooden bowl of felt- &-plastic fruit on a low table. And for the proper contrast, for corners appropriately dark, Japan’s the place: the traditional-style half of a hotel suite, say, in a seaside resort just beginning to fall on hard times. The once-full register showing alarming gaps, the heat turned off in the hall . . . but still not a speck of dust. Simply an air of genteel poverty essential to the timeless equipoise of things in their rightful places, from the imitation paper windows to the Zen-inspired alcove with scroll & spray of blossoms to the thrumming of some distant power source–a drone as melancholy as any chorus of autumn crickets. Let the uncorked chardonnay take what it needs of oxygen & light. Let nothing discompose this most exotic of guests: the saxophone resting in the corner like a golden carp. See how at home it looks? ready for the oddly missing shoe to begin tapping.