The Empty Bench 
(Buen Retiro Park, Madrid) 

On a sudden cloudbursting of wings, 
pigeons startle. Their shudder animates 
the heat where an empty bench awaits 
its couple. A minstrel's violin, on strings 

of Gypsy sorrow, wails a song that clings 
like sympathy dismayed by last regrets 
of lovers. Its tremolo disintegrates 
the solitude, showering the kings'

retreat, a storm of Spanish summer, severer 
for the slant of tears, tautly supple 
as the heat it simmers on--Until in vain 

the music ebbs, its echo like a mirror 
that reflects upon the absent couple, 
a solitude left dry by futile rain.

James Gramann's questions:

1. Is the violin's sympathetic response to the bench's missing couple apparent in this sonnet?

2. Does characterizing the music as brief and futile rain work?

3. Many great public parks in European capitals were once royal gardens, thus the reference to the "kings' retreat." Is this too obscure?

Thanks.