Sonnet 8

I wish Mr. Opperman were alive and making bass flutes in his one-man 

studio/factory in downtown South Bend. I wish Sally tiny and looking down

were wrapped in the flannelest blanket when her mother died did not worry

as most children of loss still do. I wish Mr. Opperman's Romantic breath 

into all his flutes could still preclude the silvery sine wave regulated line 

of melody of the Baroquely cloistered university apart from robust life 

where affection is most wanted. I wish young Sally did not have to cry 

with only brothers grown and her beautiful father left to comfort her 

in her pale little dress as autumn fell around her and the steps to the home 

where he later taught brought the scent of burning logs of many yards 

while suggestions of how to prime and keep the melody not the flute clean 

Wear it out playing it as the belief in the staves the quarter tones 

the half and whole tones held to the page then lifted to planned or emergent 

destinations the young might hear then play.