Musical Musings
Australian national piano award 2018
Oliver She
Rachmaninov
The fine translucent cup
Holding a smooth golden scented tea
Slow volutes of steam rise above it
Before total disintegration
Into thin air
The tension around
The coffee table
Mounts ineluctably
Reaching crescendo
Hovering above conversations
Hiding the tumult in his mind
He can't see anything
For the tears running down his cheeks
He only wished for a lighting bolt
To strike him down
She came in
Regal, imperious
Dressed in a golden gown
No hesitation in her steps
Leading her to him
The world was back in equilibrium
The universe breathed love
She was his sunshine
She brought life with her
Her soothing presence
Was cooling to his nerves
As a harp tingling ripples
Will induce a child to sleep.
-------------------
Mindless white noise
From the blaring radio
In the background
Emptying without rhyme or reason
The news of the world
With its catastrophes,
Its unending war games,
Its opinionated politics,
Daily cacophony he didn't enjoy
He preferred the soft whispering
Of the wind in the gumtrees
The rushing creeks along the cliffs
Falling headlong into a precipitous chasm
Diving and giving him the thrills
To be alive, fully alive,
Every pore of his skin was breathing
With delight a cool breeze
Oh what was it to him
The worldly rotomontades
Of a human world out of kilter
The mountain would stay
Whatever the past and coming seasons
Living each day for itself
Facing it being a daily challenge in itself
A reason to live, even when destruction
Came bringing Fire in its trail
Evolving evil with the commotion
Of a steam train at full speed
Noise and smoke surrounding
Invading nooks and crannies
Hiding any refuge.
-----------------------
Beautiful voice singing the day
Rowing boat on the Volga
Willows bathing on the banks
Their long trailing branches
Fishermen skiffs passing by
Friends drinking, joking
In the distance, the other bank
Barely distinguishable,
Another world, a new border,
Happiness is on the river
The current push downward ineluctable
Wooden huts, fragile shutters
Against a vigorous winter of censorship
Freedom is on the Volga
In the cradle of its current
Fresh air lifts historic stale air
Remnants of barbaric invasions
Caught, murmured by the river flow
To the pale dawn hiding in the rushes
Life is a long quiet river of falsehoods
To be lost in this unending beechwood forest
That line the river bank
To run free, to scream away the frustration
Of wild imagination in this mundane world
Indifferent to ones woes, to one's story
Still the river flows evenly
Unperturbed by the sudden whirlpool
Echoes of time
Echoes of history
Echoes of battles
Echoes of conquests
Echoes of destructions
Echoes of war
Echoes of tribulations
Nothing stops the mighty river
Human troubles are no concern
The Volga is eternal.
Lucette C. Bailliet
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