Another Tanglewood Tale

One sultry summer night when the white pines

stood still and the orchestra played in shirtsleeves,

the cymbals crashed to end the symphony's

third movement, and a woman collapsed

on the lawn. When she opened her eyes

in the first aid tent a cardiologist

asked about her heart, an internist wondered

if she might be diabetic, and a neurologist

ventured she must have vertigo. But she waved

away their questions until a psychiatrist asked,

"Why do you think you collapsed?"

And she raised her blue eyes, measured each

physician like a maestro leading a children's orchestra:

"Doctors! Such fools! It was the Ludwig van Beethoven!"