Author: Gary U.S. Coates

Prairie born California ripened Humanist pilgrim.

A Winter Poem

The Snow Man

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

-Wallace Stevens

California 101:

Camp Roberts Rest Stop January 13 afternoon and not in black and white.

Civil Sundays: Poulenc’s homage to Prokofiev by way of the oboe

Poulenc, Sonata for Oboe and Piano Op. 185 (dedicated to the memory of S. Prokofiev)

Good humanist sabbath to you.

Bach provides a bonus track for the oboe aficionado, maybe for you, Emma.

I first heard this at the Amherst Summer Music Camp in Raymond, Maine in 1971, Jane Singer on Oboe with whom I played some charming Milhaud chamber music.

And on bassoon in our quintet was Kim Laskowski, now in the New York Philharmonic.
If I am not mistaken Jane is now a computer scientist in Israel.