What is the answer?
           What was the question
           —Gertrude Stein (last words)

I. “Pompes Funèbres”: briskly, majestically, with complete
        gravity & solemnity of expression

                               “why live,
                               why suffer?

                               because of a
                               great joke, an
                               absurd joke?

                               we ask these old
                               questions, to

                               continue to live
                               to continue
                               dying…”

                               an empyrean hand
                               touching the
                               stem of
                               a great gold sunflower

                               in absolute 
                               silence

                               a farina of seeds filling
                               the sky

                               in absolute
                               silence

II. Moderately slow: “Schubertian”

sun
on
rain
clouds

summer sun
on
ploughed 
clods

paeans of
loud
sunshine

III. “St Anthony’ of Padua’s Sermon to the Fishes”:
       in a quiet, flowing motion

                  Padua’s Anthony’s
                  ichthyo-euphony
                  yeah! yeah! yeah!

                  sermon’s over
                  fish same as ever—
                  blah! blah! blah!

                  stupidity today!
                  moribundity tomorrow!
                  rah! rah! rah!

IV. “Primeval Light”: very solemn, but simple

“in an artist
it must come from
a sense of totality, the whole;
and humanity as a whole.
How can a man be satisfied
when he sees another man
lacking—“

I am from God. and
must to God return

While we slept these kept with us:
the grosbeak’s breast in the early sun,
the wood thrush’s notes, ants
in the leaves,
mallows in the wind and
dogwoods opening

the world of the little hears little Mahler,
but while we slept
these kept with us

V. Scherzo tempo:  all stops out

The Lord of Orchards
selects his fruits
in the Firmament’s
breast.

“Hogs live in the present;
Poets live in the past,”
said Palmer. Orchards are
where the air
is blessed.