The pianist
Home in the early hours
along the lonely path
from the railway station
the temperature has fallen
the dew is descending
and the grass is furring up
with a delicate frost
and I remember his hands
as he felt his way through Brahms
felt his way through his feelings
tentative and yet decided:
the instruments of passion
at his fingertips melody
which he caresses as the lover
that lies within
gently phrasing his affections
Leaning in he extracts a cascade
a stream of notes picked
from the calm domestic world
that surrounds him
the rhythm shifts but the identity
doesn’t change
He has nothing to reveal
he is the revelation
on a walk through the woods
here a rose there a robin
an eagle soaring above a stream
of crystal clear water
He has become
part of the world narrative
a rich fragment
a billowing love song to life
and to natural beauty
: here children play
you can hear their laughter
as they race down the hill
here love goes hand in hand
surges in moments of ecstasy
and subsides into peace :
the piano has become a carapace
he bears the weight
on his shoulders—a shell
a habitat an exuberant
meteorological space
Lost within a score
he leans back
adjusts his cuffs
and shakes his wrists
to loosen the remaining
notes that lie within him
Faith and hope and charity
the variegated satisfactions
of a domestic universe
an impassioned partnership
in which he has dissolved into Brahms
a marriage and a resurrection
and so the frost falls
and the night sleeps on
until lovers
refreshed
rise from each other’s arms
into the new day
John Lyons
The poem above is based on notes taken during a brilliant performance of Brahms’ Three Intermezzos Opus 11 given by Evgeny Kissin at the Barbican theatre on 10 March 2016.
johnjosephlyons 