sits with a small smile, watching  

two speckled frogs or lizards run right 

and left, apart, together 



on long legs bendable as rubber. 

He doesn't bend down, looking,  

or sway to keep up with their scuffles,   



but sits immobile, his eyes

icon-sized but lidded, following 

those mottled creatures.  Bow-tied,



sweater-vested, he could be a clerk  

at a counter, there to wrap

things up for us the old-fashioned way,



with brown paper and a string.

He is old, no doubting it; his lean 

head states the skull's theme clearly.  



Strict time has taught him patience, practice

this perfect stillness, amused,

a little, like Buddha, watching two  



lithe, spotted beasts (allegro) 

in their hopscotch hurry.  Now stealthy

(lento), now frantic, they ramble



and attack and he observes, as if  

to learn their motives--hunger?

fear? territorial contention?



They could be hoarding, like ants,

against the future, or this display

might be, in fact, a mating   



dance (as we, the viewers, are hoping

in our hearts).  They are not tame,

exactly, or exactly trapped--that



man is kindly, it strikes us,  

and would release them.  He is admiring,

it seems, the precision, worked



out in all this time--the way they fit  

their niche.  Just the parts they need

they have evolved: the long and recurved



reachers, the last joints padded   

hammer heads.  He glances now and then

at Previn, the beat-keeper.



"They will go on forever,"

he might be saying, "unless your stick

can make an end of it."  There--



the cut-off falls, the last chord

lingers in the strings.  The old man flings

them--winged?--up into the air,



a referee (that bow tie)

declaring both the winner, sending

them heavenward, letting go.