ODE TO THE CAPITOL: TEA SONATA ECHOED

                   BY A CHOIR OF CICADA

Dedicated to Maryland Poet Laureate Grace Cavalieri & Her Poetry Legion

 Touchy mist

Lakeside moon
  Thy trovatori’s soul
  May Statue of da Liberty
  Mingling at our Times Square
  Notes by Dvořák on Hudson River
  Spring tunes up thy curve of Annapolis
  Dip a tone lipped by a Mall’s choir of cicada
  Modulate wanderer’s melody to that bi-tonal center
  Day to night, la NJ Turnpike landing for transportation
  Where could those Baltimorean gulls and herons go to hide
 By autumn, piece by piece woven over Virginia hill-frosty leaves

Morning light snaps the Pennsylvania maple, atop a rocky cliff
 Orchid perfume steams up amid Chesapeake’s shadowy tide
  Town and country, a land of tracking for immigration
  Bronze bell at cadence be archaic paideia defender
  Sip a cone in echo with the Capitol’s sonata
  Mirror fluttering firebugs’ phosphorus
  Generations of the diverse clever
  Human praised for being fair
  Supersede multi misery
  A learnt spirit holds
  Your lotus tune
  Kissy breeze

Morning light snaps the Pennsylvania maple, atop a rocky cliff

Orchid perfume steams up amid the Chesapeake’s shadowy tide

 Town and country, vast land of tracking for immigration
  At cadence, bronze bell be archaic paideia defender

Sip a cone in echo with Capitol’s tea sonata

Mirror fluttering firebugs’ phosphorus

Generations of multi-diverse clever

Human praised for being so fair

Supersede the aging misery

Where learnt spirit holds

On your lotus tune
  A kissy breeze
  A touchy mist

My lakeside moon
  Whoever trovatori’s soul
  May Statue of da Liberty
  Mingling at our Times Square
  Notes by Dvořák upon Hudson River
  Spring tunes up long curve of Annapolis
  Dip a tone lipped by a Mall’s choir of cicada
  Modulate wanderer’s melody to that bi-tonal center
  Day to night, long NJ Turnpike landing for transportation
  Where could those Baltimorean gulls and herons rush to hide
  By autumn, piece by piece woven over Virginia hill—frosty leaves

Morning light snaps the Pennsylvania maple, atop a rocky cliff

By autumn/piece by piece woven on Virginia hill/frosty leaves

Where could those Baltimorean gulls, herons go to hide

Orchid perume steams up Chesapeake’s shadowy tide

Day to night, da NJ Turnpike landing for transportation

Town and country, a land of tracking on immigration

Modulate wanderer’s melody to la bi-tonal center

At cadence, bronze bell be one paideia defender

Dip a tone lipped by Mall’s a cappella cicada

Sip a cone in echo with Capitol’s tea sonata

Spring tunes up long curve of Annapolis

Mirror fluttering firebugs’ phosphorus

Notes by Dvořák upon Hudson River

Multi generations of diverse clever

Mingling at mutual Times Square

Human praised for being so fair

May iconic Statue for Liberty

Supersede the aging misery

Immigrant’s trovatori soul

What learnt spirit holds

 There’s lakeside moon

Along your lotus tune

And a touchy mist

My kissing breeze

INSPIRED BY MY CHINESE POEM

 <蟬韻啖清風> —— 調寄水調歌頭

霜葉立秋織，禪旭抹江楓。

忘機鷗鷺誰匿，疏影暗香茸。

落雁平沙弦剔，流水高山緣覓，塵劫夢懸空。

移調犯商徵，聲煞劍如虹。

荷塘月，明眸奪，適蓮蓬。

郁濃芳茁，入腔蟬韻啖清風。

一嘯騷魂筆絕，幾度銜枚險脫，談笑識荊雄。

劍膽青山骨，笳囀叩蟾宮。

—— 詠智

註：<鷗鷺忘機> / <平沙落雁> / <高山流水> 乃古琴曲；犯調乃移/轉調；煞聲乃終結樂句。

Ode is originally a style of the 16th-century classical Latin verse set to songs, similar to a cantata, addressed to a deity. Remarkably Schiller’s Ode to Joy was used by Beethoven as song text in the final movement of his Ninth Symphony, in voicing an ideal seek of universal brotherhood through joy in 1824.

Grace Cavalieri has been appointed by Maryland Governor Larry Hogan as the Maryland Poet Laureate in 2019. Cavalieri and her “legion” of thousands of poetry fans, over the past four decades, have been connecting with each other through the news media/radio/podcasting/Facebook channels in Washington. That legion of poets portrays a track of multi-generation and multi-culture of immigration originated from different parts of the world. They have been mingling their diverse footpath all over the East Coast of the United States, from New York/New Jersey to Pennsylvania/Delaware, and down to the Greater Washington Metropolitan area.

Trovatori is a genre of the 13th-century Italian monophonic folk songs with dance performed by poet-musicians. Bitonality originally is referred to the simultaneous use of two different keys in different parts of a music

composition; the term bi-tonal center is literary used as a metaphor for treasuring the bilingual/bicultural skills of the new immigrants. Cadence is a musical term referring to a melodic or harmonic formula that concludes, either momentary or permanent, an ending for a section, or a phrase of a music composition.

Paideia is an ancient Greek term in reference to a well-balanced cultivation of mental and physical skills that is comparable to the Confucianism Six Arts: rites (禮), music (樂), archery (射), horse riding (御), calligraphy (書), and mathematics (數); it is culturally envisioned on enhancing an ideal education for liberal arts.

China’s sixty-five pieces of bronze bell-chime set was excavated in 1978, namely theBianzhong of Marquis Yi of Zeng (of 433 B.C.); it reflects the highest level of ancient bronze technology/cultural arts and a sharp application of music theory on the twelve half tones. Except the biggest round shaped one, each of the 64 pieces of leave-shaped bells can sound two different pitches within an interval of either major or minor third, tone-painting an integrated concept of humanity and the value of an orderly ritual.

The National Mall, located near the downtown of the District of Columbia, is usually referred to that vast area of grassland between the United States Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial, posturing like a dragon meridian of the Capital City in terms of feng shui. The Mall encompasses an intellectually enriched landscape of art galleries/cultural programs under the Smithsonian Institution, and various memorials, sculptures and statues; it is generally believed that there has been receiving over 25 million visitors each year. A cappella is a musical term for unaccompanied choral music.

Czech composer Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904) composed his Symphony No. 9, From the New World, in 1893, which was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, during a time he served as the Music Director at the National Conservatory of Music of America in New York, 1892 – 1895. In praising for the grandeur and social excitement of America under this melting-pot symphony, Dvořák organically weaved with different types of folk melodies that he experienced from such a new world, especially the native American Indian songs and African-American spirituals that he had heard; subsequently the theme from the Second Movement (Largo) was arranged into a spiritual-like song Goin’ Home by Dvořák’s pupil William Arms Fisher, who wrote the lyrics in 1922. Over the past hundred years, this New World Symphony has continuously been praised as the most popular “American orchestral work” at concert halls in the West.

The Hudson River, a river in New York State with a length of 315 miles, flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It significantly goes southward through the Hudson Valley to the Upper New York Bay between New York City and Jersey City that provides a political boundary between the states of New Jersey and New York at its southern end.

Numerous landmarks have been built along the Hudson River, including the World Trade Center, George Washington Bridge, Lincoln and Holland Tunnels, and the Ellis and Liberty Islands, reflecting an enriching heritage of the European inhabitants’ exploration in the East Coast and their ensuing settlement, colonization, revolution, urbanization, industrialization, socio-economic and cultural development, as well as a fully developed multiple-point transportation system. Along with that region’s endless infrastructure construction during the twentieth century, Hudson River had always been a hot topic in regard of its confrontation with ecology principles, environmentalism and natural resources management.

The Times Square, stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets at the heart of Manhattan in New York City, has been positioned as the icon of a melting pot for the “Big Apple”, especially for its annual count-down gathering for the millions on the New Year’s Eve Ball Drop, and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day and other historic parades. As the hub of the Broadway Theater District, the Square’s entertainment show business and the correlated servicing industries have been constantly providing job opportunities to waves of new immigrants in forming an indispensable economic infrastructure for a diverse socio-cultural spectrum. Being one of the world’s busiest pedestrian areas, Times Square is also named as one of the world’s most popular tourist attractions, drawing over tens of millions of visitors annually whereas hundreds of thousands of people pass through every day whilst many of them are tourists.

The New Jersey Turnpike (NJTP), one of the most heavily travelled highways in the United States, is a toll road in New Jersey with a total length of 122.40 miles; it is the most important section of the Interstate Highway System close to the coastal line of the East Coast, facilitating necessary access to various cities and ports in New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New York. Annapolis, located on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, is the capital city of Maryland. Being surrounded by river, this small, beautiful city is part of the Atlantic Coastal Plain and relatively flat, with the highest point being 50 feet above sea level. Annapolis is also considered as part of the Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area.

Siding with Annapolis, the environmentally well-protected Chesapeake Bay has an extended shoreline of 11,684 miles, extending from Northern Mary- land to the District of Columbia and Southern Virginia, with an exceptionally valuable feature on the fishing industry (mainly for crabs and oysters) and ecology. It also postures like a dragon meridian of the Greater Washington metropolitan area in terms of feng shui.

A FERMATA NOTE FOR GRACE CAVALIERI

Wife of sculptor/mom of 4/In agenda, almight 

On Poet/Poem, thousands of rhyming knights

Da brights mingling along la brook for paideia

Across an ocean/at Karma/cheers on starlight 

Note: Fermata is a musical symbol on music notation that indicates that the performer may, at his discretion, hold a note, chord or rest for longer than the normal time value.  

  FLOOD OF CIVILIAN WOMEN AND KIDS’ BLOOD

 20 years of trillions for a corruptive hierarchy                                             Then ask you go                   

No difference with any crime-run monarchy                                              If betray my vote  

Escaped warlord filled up millions of cash                                                A devil’s liberation

Left behind unguarded vulnerable flesh                                                 Bungled evacuation

Unplanned to let an engine off clutch                                                   Put millions at lethal                                

Flood of civilian women/kids’ blood                                                   So shameful dismantle            

Being an incompetent commander                                                  Are two just jerky dumb                    

Let every staff silence at rotunda                                                   To a globe down a thumb                  

The majority voted team of you                                                  From the Dynasty of Trump                        

In reality hear what thou fool                                                   In reality hear what thou fool                    

From the Dynasty of Trump                                                  The majority voted team of you                     

To a globe down a thumb                                                   Let every staff silence at rotunda         

Are two just jerky dumb                                                   Being an incompetent commander     

So shameful dismantle                                                   Flood of civilian women/kids’ blood             

Put millions at lethal                                                    Unplanned to let an engine off clutch        

Bungled evacuation                                                  Left behind unguarded vulnerable flesh           

A devil’s liberation                                                 Escaped warlord filled up millions of cash                

If betray my vote                                                No difference with any crime-run monarchy                     

Then ask you go                                               20 years of trillions for a corruptive hierarchy

Note: This is an elegy weeping with the civilians of Afghanistan.

MIDGET STALIN NOT A MESSIAH

No food, no drink, weeping
Bear toy aside, no sleeping
Boy fled away/aged eleven
On foot for hours of eleven

Resisting for years of even

Ukrainian girl aged at eight
Running to embrace da big
Flower to her father, no gig
His gun towards a monster
Bullet be la Stalin's greeter

Bugling across every ocean
Reds 1984 is not just fiction

State lockdown not a reason
Quarantine on concentration
Dragon lost a civilian motion
COVID silenced one anthem
Life over there, just condom

Waves of blank white paper
Students had no mask-cover
Never like be a street fighter
For fears of paper dumpster
Voices kept by 1984 camera

One-man-party propaganda
Midget Stalin Not a Messiah

Note: Stalin is hereby portrayed as a trademark for every communist tyranny.

PRAYING ARIRANG

Touched by Samsung’s hand phone

And Kyung Wha Chung’s violin tone

Another Chung’s baton at La Scala

Thy state-of-the-art Hyundai Sonata

Preserving Confucian music of A-Ak

Every note tones a democratic Korea

Unsuk Chin’s symphonies toning afar

Yun’s requiem on Kwangju Massacre

Soul under pen of Laureate Han Kang

Praying arirang/arirang-kamsanhamida

Note: Arirang is the name of a Korea's beloved folk song that conventionally symbolizes the soul of the traditional Korean culture.  Kyung Wha Chung (1948--),  a  Grampphone's artist and Julliard faculty, is one of the topnotch violinist of the twentieth century.  Kyung's brother, Myung-whun Chung (1953--) is the first Asian conductor appointed to be the Music Director of La Scala Opera House.  Hyundai Sonata has been a popular model of Korean car in the West for decades.  A-Ak is classical Korean court music that has been successfully preserved some of the Confucian ritual music genre originated of the Tang-dynasty China.  Unsuk Chin (1961--), a Berlin based Korean composer, is a Grawemeyer awardee in 2004 and has won several other prestigious music awards.  Isang Yun (1917-1995), was a noted Korean composer who spent most of his life in Germany.  In 1981, Yun composed an Exemplum in memoriam Kwangju, a military massacre on the unarmed students and civilian in 1980.  Han Kang (1970--), a Korea writer, is the 2024 Nobel Laureate in Literature.  Kamsanhamida means thank you in Korean.

A 40-YEAR IMPROMPTU

Notes ink-stroked to thou sunless rhapsody

Blooddrops layered off/on tearless chivalry

Syllables/tones/rhymes/images--touchless 

Symphonizing a 40-year impromptu fantasy 

Note: So thrilled it was to attend Toyin Spellman-Diaz’s remarkable recital at the Levine Schoolof Music in Washington in 2026.  At the intermission, Toyin touchingly introduced her parents AB and Karen Spellman, me and her former classmates Diane and Philip Savard of the DC Youth Orchestra. What a big surprise to me that audience had been clapping for half a minute when Toyin introduced me first, then her parents, and then former classmates.  I was extremely grateful for her touching compliments!  Toyin devoted to form Imani, a multi-genres wind quintet that was a Grammy awardee; today she is an oboe faculty at the top-notched Curtis Institute of Music. 

First photo: At the White House, 2016.

© Wing Chi Chan, all rights reserved