Morning Star

—Poetry by Neil Fullwood, Nottingham, England, 

inspired by the Cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach
—Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Joseph Nolan, Stockton, CA

BWV 317
(Gott der Vater wohn' uns bei)


The view is losing the charm it never had.
The house opposite is empty. Closer to home,
litter’s gusted round the garden gate,
the lawn’s gone native, the hedge is overgrown.

The window’s not felt the window-cleaner’s touch
for a fortnight now. A lace curtain effect
of half-arsed grubbiness dulls the light.
A neighbour’s car leaks oil: the pavement’s flecked.

An ice-cream van still makes the rounds, tone-
deaf music blaring. I pause the Bach cantata;
the van’s jangling noise subsides. “Gott
der Vater wohn’ uns bei.” Stay with us, God the Father.

__________________


BWV 76
(Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes)
 
The estate as quiet as this: a sure sign
the new normal is anything but.
No youths on unlicensed quad bikes
tear-arsing down the middle of the street,

no cars pulling up near the concrete post,
twists of silver foil changing hands.
No clatter of scarpering heels
through the rat-runs. No sirens wailing closer.

The heavens declare the glory of God.
The police helicopter must be busy elsewhere. 


__________________


BWV 132
(Bereitet die Wege, bereitet die Bahn)

A car engine’s low growl draws me to the window—
a movie screen done with ads and trailers,
the main feature about to start. Three doors down,
the guy with the mid-life-crisis Alfa Romeo Giulia

lifts several shopping bags from the boot
with the furtive stumbling haste of a prelate
settling up for his disreputable magazine
in a newsagent’s several postcode areas away.

Panic buyer. Hoarder. Shelves denuded in his wake.
Prepare the ways, prepare the road, prepare
his uninterrupted final dash from car to front door,
wallet unburdened, unneeded goods to spare.


__________________

BWV 172
(Erschallet, ihr Lieder)

The cultural response to lockdown: Italians
taking to balconies with violins,
singing opera from wide-flung windows.

The estate hasn’t risen to the moment.
The guy whose white van is sitting silent
could reinvent himself—but doesn’t—

as a tool-belt Caruso. The neighbourhood
weed supplier passes up his Oistrakh-
with-an-ASBO chance, gets high instead

on his own supply. Does nobody have a fiddle,
guitar, squeezebox or pennywhistle?
Ring out, songs! A boom box responds. Dismal.


__________________


BWV 1
(Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern)

How beautifully shines the morning star,
how subtly the light of dawn insinuates itself
between the curtains, how flawless the sky
when the curtains are opened and the hangover
blinked away. How welcoming the world

even though the world is boundaried
by the lasso-throw of a postcode. But how
clear the light, how fine-tuned the colours.
How different from the weeks before the crisis
when the skies were grey and hard, the wind

raw and unforgiving, the rain constant.

____________________

Our thanks on this Easter Sunday to British Poet Neil Fullwood for his poems based on some of the Cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach, as well as the photo of the Easter goose as it reaches for the morning star, sent by Joseph Nolan.

For more about these Cantatas, go to www.emmanuelmusic.org/notes_translations/notes_cantata/what_is_a_cantata.htm AND bach-cantatas.com/.

For the meaning of the letters, BWV, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis/.

—Medusa, wishing you a beautiful Easter, despite these troubled times ~

 “How beautifully shines the morning star . . .”

—Public Domain Photo

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