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Sarabande

    I find myself posting this poem at the end of January – the 27 th , Holocaust Memorial Day. So much has been said, dwelt upon and shown – absolutely rightly – about this particular eightieth anniversary. I offer here a description of a solitary player of music at that place – music, the most abstract of all the arts. It could be suggested paradoxically that the abstract may not represent the worst way to approach the most real, most grounded of events. I don't know. I do know that February, and life itself, lies ahead, for which I give thanks. Perhaps it's best that no more be said now. Double Sarabande in 9/8 from Bach’s Partita  No. 2 in D minor for Solo Violin   Before he began there was silence. Now as he follows the lines the Sarabande accompanies him.   He proceeds with care placing his feet upon those old sleepers sunken and soaked avoiding the ballast and cinders.   The quavers are harnessed in triplets rising and falling as t...

Cher Ami

  For this first month of a New Year, I thought I'd do a first of my own, with a second.  What I'm trying to say is that this time for the first time I'd offer you two poems. I'm happy to say they're both quite short. Actually they are a pair anyway. A pair of chairs. Van Gogh's painting of his own chair is probably better known than that of his (for a while) friend Gaugin's. I've always found that humble little empty chair backing into its corner with the box of onions and simple tiled floor nothing less than poignant.  Gaugin's chair however with its arms is slightly grander: here we have not one but two light sources, a couple of books and what looks like a carpet. But neither chair is upholstered – they're both essentially basic, sharing certain similarities. Seen as a pair, they make suggestions about friendship – about welcome, suitability and preparedness; while at the same time, they both speak of absence – not just temporary, but al...