Michael Witts

I (SPRING 1715)

hands tanned the colour of his leather apron

white blouse billowing     hair adrift

the luthier trudges the streets of Cremona

feeling every one of his seventy years

delights in the light on Piazza San Domenico

the way the terracotta flames alive

the way colour and grain is conjured from timber

the way music is enticed with hair bowed on gut

today the seasons conspire against him

cats scatter and skulk     resins will not dry

the Bora creeps down the Po valley bearing cold

from the alps and moisture from Lago Di Garda

impatient Antonio Stradivari tests the wood

leaves a thumbprint in the tacky varnish

II (SUMMER 1725)

the stench from the lagoon offends the priest

otherwise delighted to hold his printed manuscript

The Contest between Harmony and Invention

his ambition questions the obvious conceit

buried in the names of the first four concertos

he loosens his red hair    watches the Sirocco

(funnelled up the Adriatic to Venice)

flick the pages    wrapped in public adoration

on his death in Vienna

most of his fame and fortune extinguished

Antonio Vivaldi’s passing was not mourned

his music was ignored

manuscripts lost for two hundred years

found in that monastery in Piedmont in 1926

III (AUTUMN 1959)

on Bennelong Point work begins on the podium

on which will sit the Sydney Opera House

migrants sail past in their Sitmar liner

focussed on the Harbour Bridge not the building site

that exuberant cockatoo of a building

sails billowing in the sea breeze

remote as their future

as they head for Walsh Bay to disembark

this was long before the philistines drove

the Dane away    long before the building work

was completed    long before Utzon died

without seeing his conception

long before the main hall was refurbished

fifty years after its completion

IV (WINTER 2022)

the Strad is part of him

he stands brightly centre stage

Concert Hall

Richter’s Four Seasons Recomposed

the soloist applies his alchemy to the violin

Spring 0 begins with morning birdcall

Sydney’s winter splutters to a close

with a furnace of a sunset driven by the south wind

synchronicity

@raychenviolin plays @maxrichtermusic     reimagining

Vivalidi’s Four Seasons 300 years

after their original composition

on a 300 year old Stradivarius violin

in the renewed @sydneyoperahouse

*Quartet won Second Prize in the 2023 International Proverse Poetry Prize and will be appearing in the Prize Anthology MINGLED VOICES 8

available through Amazon from 28 April 2024

skulking
emerging from
the dark nocturnal
with that idea bright
clarity
that startled bolt
brilliance
until you attempt
to bottle it
to assemble its entrails
on a page
blighted by light

versed in silence
chair turned
against the view
the better to read
with afternoon light
fading behind

deep in introspection
not saying anything to anyone
in particular
not seeing just imagining
how it might work

the slow recessional
heading to the darkness
blinded by the glare
seeking definition
in the shadows

the evening betrays
words scuttle
into their own order
insects reassemble
to some unknown plan
the spine of the book
the fold of wall and floor

axes awaiting dawn
and the turning of a page

Great wave off Kanagawa
First of thirty-six views of Mount Fuji
Hokusai Museum Nagano

I

memory erodes
an artisan’s knife taken to the woodblock
whittling away at the artist’s sketch
leaving nothing of the template

II

each layer pressed with ink
or washed with paint
the emerging accumulation
of that dark blue sea

III

wind spumed wave leaning to
imminent crash
maritime fingers animating a cartoon malice

IV

then three boats ten manned
emerge through surf
terror or exhilaration bends them to their work
of keeping these boats heading out to sea

V

in the foreground
a conical white wave erupts
against the darkening sea

VI

in the backgound like an echo
Mount Fuji sunstruck against the sky
on that stormy morning

VII

each print an evolution
as the woodblock degrades
with each printing

his second cousin once removed
squandered her virginity on some scoundrel
who ran off to the first war
then copped a fatal piece of shrapnel
a long way from the front

there being no one left to marry
she took up trade as the village butcher
donned her pork pie hat
and scandalised the countryside
with her frivolous bride
perched in the sidecar
attached to her thundering Velocette

refugees queue stranded at this border crossing
perched in tents and other shambles
stuck between one country and another
where we are coming from and passing to

we drive in airconditioned comfort
all that slows our bus is traffic bunched and stalled
otherwise we cross unimpeded into the mountains
and our snowbound postcard village

there must be some reason they wait here
there’s nothing stopping them
not the location or outlook
nor hunger in this abundant Europe

exhaustion perhaps simply running out
of what drove them or fear of what is in front of them
stranded between past and future
under the no vacancy sign

cooler nights of late summer
bring a stillness to the pond
the abyss reflects your face
and a swirling universe of stars

the stubborn low dumps rain
that won’t let up the pool quickens
with call and response
a blackness to swallow you

the cauldron curdles with writhing bodies
the desperate uncaring act of reproduction
competing to replicate with random mates
before the opportunity expires

frogspawn erupting in clotted clumps
each egg a proto tadpole
water clogged with life as
the frogs depart and silence returns

wriggling spermatozoa compete for space
commence the slow transition
dropping tails and acquiring legs
to leap from that heaving ooze

then to wait out the next dry spell
in some damp mothering crack
before emerging basso profundo
to crank up that urgent song

I

if you look hard enough you will find one
the fourth leaf so contrary
it startles in a vast field of clover

taking one daughter’s sage advice
her sibling and I look and see one
straight away

invited to make a wish
I cannot disclose
I want for nothing more than this

II

we follow the switchback trail
down the fold of the gully
you place crossed sticks you’ve collected
at each turn ensuring our safe return
playing Gretel to my Hansel
as if we faced some threat
you need to protect me from

the bush thickens to swallow us
we cross the creek
pause beneath
the sandstone overhang
teetering like a great wave
embracing us nevertheless

trying to imprint this moment
putting you and I together forever here

III

at birth I could almost
hold you in the palm of my hand
your future coiled like a fern
unfolding with mathematical precision
Fibonacci making a lie of the complexity
of your potential

see the crosier in that coil
the shepherd’s hook in that crook
the unfolding wonder of that unfurling

IV

we climb the grass flank of “the Skillion”
crouching like a beast
heads bowed against a malignant Pacific Ocean
slung binoculars ready to sweep
that great metallic sea
searching for the promised humpback
heading north

once I heard them sing
passing close to shore between Maui and Moloka’i
in another lifetime

under water their calls become song
strange lamentations given meaning
sparse grunts endowed with wisdom
beyond just I am coming through

V

our sense of wanting to belong
to be a part of something greater
let no-one take from you
this wondering

watching through the dazzle of a low slung sun
its gyre revealed in parts
repeated fragments betray the whole

holiday postcard
heads bob in the tinsel sea
fish swarm without menace
waves casually slap the sand

wings retract a stuka drops
vertically into the clarity below
bubbles stream in its wake
its hooked beak flaring silver
startling swimmers lolling there

its ponderous flap
body skimming the surface
before momentum releases it
back to its element
and the precision of the hunt

we farewelled him
on a rare bitter winter day in Sydney
like a bad day in Bogside

the priest in vestments and lace
the colour of jacarandas outside
enveloped in incense and aftershave
intones of someone he never met
of facts asserted in expectation and hope
of a life well lived to the captive audience
I don’t want you in my church if you don’t believe

not that he believed in life
or until the end became inevitable
we were altar boys together
roaming the dark sacristy in search
of altar wine to thieve
such was the extent of our vocation

out into the light old friends
greeting each other uncertainly
solicitude to widow and children
what his life became
beyond our meeting on the first day of school
our university days crushes on his sister
scribbled poems dissected shared lovers
lives entwined

then all that came between us
to bury our friendship
mostly just time and lives which led us somewhere else

when at six I took you to the local wharf
with your new rod for the first time
how you used to worry the line
and twitch the bait with your impatience

how I taught you to tie hook to line
which sinker float and bait to use
how I handed on my swiss army knife
to complete your fishing tackle

how I tried to impart the importance of waiting
like my father tried to teach me
how you talked to the unseen fish
inveigling them onto the line with your uncle’s charm

how at fifteen you suddenly shade me with height
and land more fish than I
how with nothing more to teach you
I am rendered not redundant but complete