After the storm

After the storm

I am exhausted, and perhaps you are as well.

A nation ripped apart in political divide and an election like the USA has never seen in 100 years. Plus a pandemic. Plus economic collapse. Plus separation from those we love and places where we long to be. Is the future clear? No. Is everything roses and sunbeams? Certainly not. But hope lives, though we don’t know how that canvas will be painted.

Our hero Beethoven knew suffering, political disappointment and disillusion. He knew sorrow. But always he made his way back to hope. There are so many stormy musical passages, but right now I just can’t. This is the sort of balm I’m seeking; familiar, slightly haunted, soft, whispery hope without blinders. This is music that says “I don’t know how things will resolve. I don’t know where this road leads, but my part is to continue with hope.”

Daniel Barenboim is one of the world’s most sensitive interpreters of Beethoven, and his touch is just right for this masterpiece, the Second Movement of the “Pathetique Sonata”. The Tone Poet suggests the music be paired with this satisfying poem.

Restoration

by Mary Cornish

Everyone knew the water would rise,

but nobody knew how much.

The priest at Santa Croce said, God

will not flood the church.

When the Arno broke its banks,

God entered as a river, let His mark high

above the altar.

He left nothing untouched:

stones, plaster, wood.

You are all my children.

The hem of His garment, which was

the river’s bottom sludge,

swept through Florence, filling cars and cradles,

the eyes of marble statues,

even the Doors of Paradise. And the likeness

of His son’s hands, those pierced palms soaked

with water, began to peel like skin.

The Holy Ghost appeared

as clouds of salted crystals

on the faces of saints, until the intonaco

of their painted bodies stood out from the wall as if

they had been resurrected.

This is what I know of restoration:

in a small room near San Marco,

alone on a wooden stool

nearly every day for a year,

I painted squares of blue on gessoed boards—

cobalt blue with madder rose, viridian,

lamp black—pure pigments and the strained yolk

of an egg, then penciled notes about the powders,

the percentages of each. I never asked

to what end I was doing what I did, and now

I’ll never know. Perhaps there was one square

that matched the mantle of a penitent, the stiff

hair of a donkey’s tail, a river calm beneath a bridge.

I don’t even know what I learned,

except the possibilities of blue, and how God enters.

So here is the point of my posting… which can’t be said any better than our poet today. Throughout all the craziness of 2020, I don’t know what I’ve learned, except the possibilities of blue, and how God enters.

Until next time we meet, enjoy music, dive into poetry, and thanks for visiting thetonepoet.com.

Postscript: For those who find this music familiar but you can’t quite place where you’ve heard it… Here are a few examples:

—Billy Joel used this theme in his 1970’s doowop song “This Night.”

—Susan Osborne‘s angelic voice adds lyrics to “Pathetique” entitled “The Garden” from her album Still Life. If you know her work please check it out. Sadly, I’ve not been able to find an online version. I’ll update this post if one can be found.