I Have Only Just A Minute

I have only just a minute,
Only sixty seconds in it.
Forced upon me, can’t refuse it.
Didn’t seek it, didn’t choose it.
But it’s up to me
to use it.
I must suffer if I lose it.
Give account if I abuse it.
Just a tiny little minute,
but eternity is in it.

—Anonymous (attributed to Dr. Benjamin E. Mays)

“Svetik Savishna” takes a little over a minute to perform—but just listen to what’s packed in it:

Seeking Shostakovich: I Am Not Me, The Nose Is Not Mine

In the teeming collage of text that forms a backdrop for the Metropolitan Opera’s 2010 production of The Nose are the words “spine,” smashed,” and “beautiful, pitiful age.” While in the thrall of the opera’s swirl of sound and image, I held tight to those words in hope of discovering where they came from and what they meant.

None More Than You: Eve Beglarian Setting of Walt Whitman

Eve Beglarian writes of the piece:

The Piano Tuner’s Son

The stiff, shy, blinking man in a norfolk suit:
The martinet: the gentle-minded squire:
The piano-tuner’s son from Worcestershire:
The Edwardian grandee: how did they consort

In such luxuriant themes?

—Cecil Day-Lewis

If you had asked me, I certainly would not have thought this Rondo was composed by Edward Elgar.

Landscaping for Privacy: May 30 in Eve Beglarian’s a book of days

OK, let’s drive, let’s tour the hydrangeas
And the lawns. What could be more suggestive
Than a grassy mattress?

—Linda Norton