'There is nothing to do with a day except to live it'

 Another day begins. Here is a starting-the-day poem by the great Richard Wilbur. It's just the kind of celebration of the domestic and the quotidian that got him such a bad reputation among the more 'advanced' taste-makers – more fools them: this is no simple celebration. 

C Minor

Beethoven during breakfast? The human soul,
Though stalked by hollow pluckings, winning out
(While bran-flakes crackle in the cereal bowl)
   Over despair and doubt?

You are right to switch it off and let the day
Begin at hazard, perhaps with pecker-knocks
In the sugar bush, the rancour of a jay,
   Or in the letter box

Something that makes you pause and with fixed shadow
Stand on the driveway-gravel, your bent head
Scanning the snatched pages until the sad
   Or fortunate news is read.

The day's work will be disappointing or not,
Giving at least some pleasure in taking pains.
One of us, hoeing in the garden plot
   (Unless, of course, it rains)

May rejoice at the knitting of light in fennel-plumes
And dew like mercury on cabbage-hide,
Or rise and pace through too-familiar rooms, 
   Balked and dissatisfied.

Shall a plate be broken? A new thing understood? 
Shall we be lonely, and by love consoled?
What shall I whistle, splitting the kindling-wood?
   Shall the night-wind be cold?

How should I know? And even if we were fated
Hugely to suffer, grandly to endure,
It would not help to hear it all fore-stated
   As in an overture.

There is nothing to do with a day except to live it.
Let us have music again when the light dies
(Sullenly, or in glory) and we can give it
   Something to organise.

Ever since I switched my allegiance from Radio 4 to Radio 3, classical music has been a background to my life for rather too much of the day (including even Classic FM pianissimo while I sleep, or not). If I'm awake early, I like to hear the snatch of birdsong that starts the Radio 3 day – but, by the time I'm eating my breakfast, I'm happy to turn the music off for a while. Wilbur is right – Beethoven at breakfast is not a good idea. But what was the C minor piece that was switched off? The expressive key of C minor was a favourite of Beethoven's – it's the key of the Pathétique sonata (and the last, number 32) and the Fifth Symphony. Wilbur talks of 'pluckings', perhaps suggesting a string quartet – maybe it was this one, a fine piece, but certainly not breakfast music...