The centre of a palm
Unconfirmed speech delay
Hearing not as I remember
Not as I wish to forget
That silent wake up
Watching up a tree
Inwards the protesting eye
Comfort in discomfort’s shadow
Stones removed our turn
To close one palm
Opening the other like
A star I remember
Look into the black
The holes the thorny
Aches of the day
He opens and in breaking
He is here
Where are you?
‘Drop, Drop Slow Tears’ by Orlando Gibbons arranged and performed by me
This poem has special significance to me. Last year on Good Friday I began learning the Prelude from Bach’s Suite No.2 in D minor for Solo Cello. I’d barely played a few bars when I felt moved to write this poem. I don’t often feel compelled to write poetry in response to music anymore. At the moment I feel as if words and music are totally separate, but this occasion was a rare inspiration to marry music, words and faith. I don’t feel like I wrote this poem because I almost feel that Bach wrote it through me. I’m not claiming that I know much about his personal theology, but his music spoke honestly and spiritually to me in that moment and so I want to share it.
The Cello Suites themselves are so whole, showing a full spectrum of life, death, jubilation and suffering. No matter what spiritual dimension you are fuelled by, this life and death of Jesus expresses the bleakness that we encounter so often in ourselves. The D minor Prelude is, for me, one of the bleakest moments in all the suite’s movements. You reach the end and it can feel unbelievable that you have to go on. This is a bleakness and emptiness that Good Friday brings us face to face with.
