The late Theodore Enslin of Milbridge was one of Maine’s most distinguished poets. Shortly before his death in November, he wrote that today’s poem was influenced by Benjamin Franklin’s glass harmonica. According to experts, the beautiful music of this instrument is in a range that makes the brain uncertain about where the sound comes from. And so, perhaps, this story of a traveler whose route into the snow is difficult to follow, and can’t be found on any map.

 

The Glass Harmonica

By Theodore Enslin

It snowed in far country

                              north and

beyond the trees.

As I went through the mirror

                                       my breath froze

clouding it,

               and they saw me no longer

in the villages of spring.

                                        I walked alone

across level plains,

                            and my tracks disappeared

in the snow which went with me.

A wind rose

                playing on harpstrings

and reeds.

              There was nothing there, and my fingers

touched ice.

               A music

                                    a music

                                                       an echo of music-

sound not a sound

                             in the quiet north country-

the snow.

 

 

Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Poem copyright © 1958 by Theodore Enslin. Reprinted from “Then and Now,” National Poetry Foundation Press, 1999, by permission of Theodore Enslin. Direct questions to David Turner, special assistant to the Maine Poet Laureate, at poetlaureate@mainewriters.org or 228-8263.

 

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