Sandstone Press

Sonnets to Mozart (10)

Posted by RLD on 8th September 2010

This group of poems is dedicated in gratitude and appreciation to the composer William Gilmour. Searching around for a theme I once noticed the scores of a number of Mozart’s piano sonatas resting in the back of his car. It happens that I like this music too, although the notion of me playing it is just an impossible dream. What better linkage to Willie though, who can and does? This led to a consideration not only of Mozart’s music but also his titles and K numbers. What might rise from a concentrated, meditative focus? It turned out to be an appreciation of the shared Dunbeath Water creation process, Paul Gallico’s story,The Snow Goose, whose themes of suffering and sacrifice strike me as pagan and Celtic rather than Christian, new beginnings, memories of my own boyhood in Glasgow, a quote from C.S. Lewis that has never left me, that grief feels like “waiting; just hanging about for something to happen. It gives life a permanently provisional feeling.” Love, sex and death all take their bows, as would be expected. That damned ferryman appears again. My mother used to say, “There’s no show without Punch”, and that takes us back to Rhayader and his spirit bird.’ Now also remembering Edwin Morgan.

Listening to Mozart after a Telephone Call

The last word, hers – once again a sad one;
The phone goes down with a percussive knock.
Does she remember sex – remember fun?
Now, all her talk is of sorrow and work.
I find I want to listen in the dark.
They repeat, don’t they, in both our lives,
The minor chords that signal tragedy,
Bars of despair dividing into parts.
Anxious waiting, the ghostly form of loss,
Resolving into a harsh self pity
That’s hers this time, not mine. For once, she’d say.
I don’t deny. Too well I know the force
Of despair, the primacy of its claim.
The keynote of love, too often, is pain.

Rondo In A Minor, K511