The Cellist

Once, the cellist was a child
Eyes mirroring Scandinavian skies
Born with wildfire in his soul, they said
The majesty of the firs in his bearing
His skin the whitest snow-dusted taiga

A troubled adolescent- he needed no sweetheart
Carried his undemanding lover in his arms
And, on wasteland, made her scream

Her rawness to satisfy his lust,
They shrieked into the echoing still
Until rosin dust clouded the thin cold air
Until anguish dripped from his hot fingertips

The cellist then became a star
A veritable supernova
His name sparkling on the lips of virtuosos
Similarly plucked from humble roots
Now discarded, their intertwined melodies crumbling
Fading into deaf obscurity.

In fame the cellist became like his tool
Radiating hard brightness
From the applause stemmed a new hunger, a greed
A need- to create, to express, to outshine
Everything about me is spectacular, he said
Drawing colour and texture and shade from his life
Genius consuming him like a fever

He thought he'd not wake from the dream
That the world would forever bow down at his feet
The nectar of victory sweet, intoxicating sweet...

Now the cellist is more silver than gold
As he treads, as though dreaming, the boards
Fingers the scarlet velvet curtain and sighs
Wordless regret to an empty auditorium.

He remembers the moment his fate was sealed
Seeing his father, lead cellist, on this self-same stage-
Beaming, straight-backed, ferocious, absorbed:
The stranger who had dissolved like the mist
And left whispering nights blacker than before.

The cellist's fingers are soft now,
Hands veined, lined, plump with advancing age
Yet no band of gold graces this skilled hand,
This palm has no memory of silken skin.
These years of caressing a varnished muse
Left him only grace-notes and fairytale glitter

His symphony is at an end
No-one is here to share this silence.
He crouches in the dusty dark
And, with no manuscript, laments.