EPILOGUE
 
Exultation in Bemol and Other Keys
‘How strange the change
from major to minor.’ Cole Porter
 
1. My hymn of joy is in a minor key
because I am not certain it will be
a joy for ever, and E flat is true
to the six flats of ambiguity,
and earthly expectations. It creates
semitone pleas to the musical fates,
with an undertow of cosmic ennui.
 
The joy is not pure. But still the beauty
of not being sure is you can defer
high hopes to give honesty its due.
No major chords forcing the truth to do
more than it contains. The unholy quaver
is plaintive. Its saving grace must be
the half tone of hesitant behaviour.
 
G major would be a hymn of battle.
The joy in its F sharp is short lived.
The peace that comes after the final kill
can’t be lasting. The bereft don’t forgive
the hero’s loss that memorials extol.
The Eroica, Beethoven’s pacifying gift
to Napoleon, comes in Bémol.
 
2. Bémol in French means pipe down. And E flat.
The register of Mouchette in Bresson’s film.
Always out of tune when other children
belt out school songs in strict unison,    
she drowns herself, unrolling like a mat
down a slippery slope to a lime kiln
subsiding into mud. That, then, was that.  
 
But did her misery in us lessen
with the strains of the Magnificat
in the background, as though in a chapel?
Monteverdi’s plainsong keeps us guessing
at heaven’s gate, or wherever God is posted
to exalt the meek. One day all will be well.
Out in daylight we must make the most of it.
 
3.  Blind faith is facing up to a blank wall
so, you can jump it, Pascal says. Wait 
outside, and take your chance after nightfall.
And adds, it’s never just an act of will.
Your heart must be in it. Proof is still
in the body, an instrument. Let it sing,
and prove yourself with a leap of faith.  
 
4. Music gets me over the garden gate,
and once inside, I pick up a windfall,
humming to myself, ‘It is not too late
to double guess the worm and eat the apple.
It dropped in your lap of its own accord.
Call it love, or bliss, or just what happens
when ripeness is all. It’s only natural.’
 
A hymn to joy isn’t just its own reward,
I compose myself, and my lungs fill
to breathe out an open air in E flat,
tendering life into a doubter’s view,
with a bagatelle in a minor key.
The piped down tone is a muted trill,
delivering the promise of close harmony.
 
And I have something to look forward to… 
 
 
On Leaving Something Behind
 
Every time I leave a café
I like to look back in hope
a waiter comes after me
breathlessly calling, ‘Your coat’.
 
Or something I’d left behind.
 
I’m such a careful fellow.
When there isn’t a cloud in sight
I carry an umbrella
and my sunglasses at night.
 
I study the absent mind.
 
My heed keeps them on the trot.
I’d forget myself if that
was possible. It’s not.
What never fails is a hat.
 
My headband is always signed.
 
Posterity in advance.
has been forewarned that I am
a manipulator of chance
who exploits good will, a man
who’s leaving something behind.