Albatross

Albatross

You could have knocked me over with an albatross

when I heard that four off-kilter waltzes I was listening to

were by Samuel Coleridge Taylor. Hang on, I thought,

my favourite Romantic poet [ sorry Wordsworth] whom

I studied at Uni, who wrote one of the great lyric narratives

of all time, ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ was also

a classical composer? How did this just become known?

Did he moonlight as a musician, did he snuggle up

to the great composers of his time? But then the announcer,

as if reading my mind, clarified that the composer was

Samual Coleridge Taylor whom his mother named after

the great poet. After I calmed my farm, I settled back

and listened to more of Samuel C.