Garnet Poems: An Anthology of Connecticut Poetry Since 1776

Pageant of the Cold

126 gArnet poems Pageant of the Cold The Queen of the Parade floats by on her painted car, Glitteringly, in between postures—sitting for some Endless series of portraits? lying for the moment? Standing for the brave Muse of Parading who could not Make it this afternoon? Ten streets ahead The Old Men’s Band plays A Closer Walk with Thee as chromatic tints Of something bouncy in another key fall across Its dying sounds. Held down by long guy-ropes in the hands Of struggling lackeys, the Great Forms float by overhead— Pegasus, Apollo, a Hippogriff, Daffy Duck: In childhood, knowing that these balloons were full of air Deflated in no way whatever stature they had. Now we gaze sadly, bored, at the Triumph of Moments. But the Queen will not be forsworn. She turns her head, smiles, And waves at us amid even more oompahs, sirens Cutting the distant air, seducing all attention To the violent island all around us, away From this tacky-tawdry ill-timed progress, this parade Of tired fables which is now an institution. But the sirens are tired too and have all belonged For some years to the Society of Sound Effects. They are as part of a neighboring parade the Queen Will also loll amidst, begrimed as beglittered now. Her smiles go on for miles; the great balloons will preside Over the darkening streets, over the lackeying Layers of lower air they gravely bow and sway among. ...