Crescent Moon in March. (New Version).

Whispering into the hollow shell of my viola

I remember the last time we spent together

And try to fill the empty hours with music.

The pain warped cadences of Beethoven`s

Final string quartet,

Crafted out of solitude and sickness,

Echo indistinctly from the record player

In an adjoining room.

I place my viola back inside its case,

My music seems a fraud compared to Beethoven`s.

Tonight we are in the company of angels,

Or so I dare imagine.

They fly between us on silent wings,

Conveying coded messages that we alone decipher

In the privacy of our dreams.

They seem to feel the full hurt of our separation

As we wait out the wistful evening hours.

Until I met you I did not believe in angels,

I thought that they were optical illusions

Observed by Coptic hermits

Fasting in remote and hostile places.

I thought these saints were driven mad by loneliness,

By mouldy bread or brackish drinking water,

But now I must self isolate, kept indoors by covid,

The hidden presence of our guardian angels

Seems as real as music.

Tonight the moon is an indistinct white crescent,

A desert moon marred by the English mists,

Febrile mists dissolving truth and clarity. -

The ambivalent final chords of the string quartet,

 Echo through the house - and then the silence.

I turn off the lights. I crave a clearer view

Of the westward drift of the shadow patterned moon

Above suburban rooftops.

I hope that you can also watch the moon,

From the enforced sanctuary of your hospital bed.

I retrieve my viola from its wooden case.

For the first time since the fall that nearly killed you

I can play the tune I wrote the day we met.

In the depths of my mind I hear you call my name.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter.

March 3rd. - May 12th. 2020. - March 20th. - 21st. 2021.

This is a complete of a poem that I found very hard to write at first. This, I think, is the finished version.

The simplicities and complexities of Beethoven`s final string quartet have remained in my mind while I have been trying to complete this poem. I wrote it for a lovely person I have been unable to meet for far too long. The viola represents my singing voice, silenced because of covid.