The Invention of the Saxophone
         
         It was Adoiphe Sax, remember,
         not Saxo Grammaticus, who gets the ovation.         
         And by the time he had brought all the components
         together-the serpentine shape, the single reed,
         the fit of the fingers,
         the upward tilt of the golden bell-
         it was already 1842, and one gets the feeling
         that it was also very late at night.
         
         There is something nocturnal about the sound,
         something literally horny,
         as some may have noticed on that historic date
         when the first odd notes wobbled out of his studio
         into the small, darkened town,
         
         summoning the insomniacs (who were up
         waiting for the invention of jazz) to their windows,
         but leaving the sleepers undisturbed,
         even deepening and warming the waters of their dreams.
         
         For this is not the valved instrument of waking,
         more the smoky voice of longing and loss,
         the porpoise cry of the subconscious.
         No one would ever think of blowing reveille
         on a tenor without irony.         
         The men would only lie in their metal bunks,
         fingers twined behind their heads,
         afloat on pools of memory and desire.
         
         And when the time has come to rouse the dead,
         you will not see Gabriel clipping an alto
         around his numinous neck.
         An angel playing the world's last song
         on a glistening saxophone might be enough
         to lift them back into the light of earth,
         but really no farther.
         
         Once resurrected, they would only lie down
         in the long cemetery grass         
         or lean alone against a lugubrious yew
         and let the music do the ascending-
         curling snakes charmed from their baskets-
         while they wait for the shrill trumpet solo,
         that will blow them all to kingdom come.
         

 
By Billy Collins
         From the book "The Art of Drowning"
         University of Pittsburgh Press
         
         Copyright ©1995
         All rights reserved.
         Reproduced by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.
         
                 
         The Art of Drowning
         by Billy Collins
         Price:    $12.95 paper
        ISBN#: 0-8229-5567-9 paper.