An Anthem For Orpheus

Some animals were gathered in a ring
around a rhapsode playing with a song.
He sighed and plucked a solitary string,
“It’s music. What could possibly go wrong?”

The lion lying there, beside the lamb,
drifted off to sleep in the tall grass;
brooks trickled in, and so did boulders, and
the audience stood up, as if at Mass.

He handled his equipment with such skill,
he held a brief monopoly on sound.
He plucked another string, another—til
a mushroom cloud erupted over town.

Some say this was the first experiment
to mix religion, politics and art.
The town was made of music, not cement.
Construction in cement had yet to start.