January 13, 2008 in Features

American Life in Poetry

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Here is Arizona poet Steve Orlen’s lovely tribute to the great opera singer, Maria Callas. Most of us never saw her perform, or even knew what she looked like, but many of us listened to her on the radio or on our parents’ record players, perhaps in a parlor like the one in this poem.

In the House of the Voice of Maria Callas

In the house of the voice of Maria Callas

We hear the baby’s cries, and the after-supper

Rattle of silverware, and three clocks ticking

To different tunes, and ripe plums

Sleeping in their chipped bowl, and traffic sounds

Dissecting the avenues outside. We hear, like water

Pouring over time itself, the pure distillate arias

Of the numerous pampered queens who have reigned,

And the working girls who have suffered

The envious knives, and the breathless brides

With their horned helmets who have fallen in love

And gone crazy or fallen in love and died

On the grand stage at their appointed moments –

Who will sing of them now? Maria Callas is dead,

Although the full lips and the slanting eyes

And flared nostrils of her voice resurrect

Dramas we are able to imagine in this parlor

On evenings like this one, adding some color,

Adding some order. Of whom it was said:

She could imagine almost anything and give voice to it.

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