Melodiously, in maple, spruce and ebony
The honeyed sap is rising:
A secret gravity of wise accumulations,
A throb of music gestating in the wood.
And so, gorged with notation,
In a glance they begin,
And their minds extend, abduct
And flex,
Arched exactly
To the curvature of the earth.
No longer cumbered with gravity,
Their fingers
Nimble the strings
Like creditors
Calling in more favours;
And the curve of their elocution, rises, soars-
An emboldened Caravaggio
Is swaying in their spines-
Until the cello schools the cellist,
Beckons down, resonates in baritone,
But then, how the mourning bow ascends
In phrases beyond all breathing.
And then they slow
As in courtesy they acquiesce and nod
To the warmth of light in the coldest places,
To the afflicted mind of Robert Schumann,
To the smile in the Andante.
And a small part of a Melbourne evening,
Cool for spring,
Is thus composed, enlivened
Made majestic.