Kateřina Smetana

He loved the past; that ancient heraldic grandeur,

Towers and armour glimmering in the mist;

Wind and hoof, castle and forest, fur

Nailed with ice, and flames against the snow.

The immortal river looping forests, rocks

And centuries. The saviour of myth;

Everything reminded him, keened in his head

Until it became a quickening and a faith,

A savage hope that blossomed into sound;

Until it became that waterfall of noise,

The jangle and unintelligible roar;

Until it became the inescapable,

The ceaseless whistle, the incessant E

That screamed in the homeland of his harmony.

I loved the past; when he ransacked the orchestra,

Shook from it stars and ancestors and meadows

Lit with flowers; he juggled with it, rode it,

Trapped it, whole, in string quartets, gave shape

To lives that always were and never were.

Now he is locked where none of us has been

And I can never go. The village dance

Is frozen, stars are stalled, and the huge howl

Of silence in his dreadful stare is all

That litters his staves. He will not touch my hair

Or hold my hand or wipe my tears. I am

The pain of lost music, the last glimmer

That proves the darkness running over fields.

NIGEL FORDE