On Listening to Mahler

Afternoon gives way to evening...
red dogwood ablaze in the sun’s
last rays against slanting shadows
of a paling fence – too day-weary
to stand erect.

They say Mahler’s 5th
turns corners; meandering this way
and that, and maybe that’s the way
I’d like my symphony to finish...

and if it should end, right this minute,
I would be fine with a chair, and logs
on the hearth, agapanthus in a vase –
belonged to my grandma; a book, a dog.
A child, soft and sleeping.