Laurence Lieberman
The Organist's Black Carnation
Odd music,
cutting through the horn blasts and squawks of traffic, asserts
its live and public wash
of sound rolling in waves across the town square . . . Christ Church
Cathedral. Once in the Church rear courtyard, we find
we can disencumber the river of organ song from percussive
street blare—
its source, the deep hall within tall double doors,
unbolted. Mother
and I, goose-stepping
on circular, wide ceramic tiles of the walkway, traverse
the Church
gardens, and pass through the side entrance. The instrument
itself, so near the door, we almost collide
with the seated performer, his arms and legs all pumping
together, the four limbs
utterly weightless, his moves between upper and lower keyboards
effortless, unwilled.
as buoyed up
by a hidden well of pure feeling as his side-to-side runs
across any one keyboard.
Tall. Blond. Bearded. American. Stops to turn pages. Smiles
Hello. Any music you prefer, he asks? Oh yes,
any Bach. Bach Preludes unfold, at once—the music
before him.
But he could be playing from memory. Or sightreading.
A little of each,
I'd guess, never up close
to an organist expert before, I gasp at agilities
of legwork,
the sheer quantity of wooden pedals, joined in a concave arc
recessed below his legs, his knees spreading wide,
wider, as he reaches for the pedals at either far end—
there are so many
moving parts, keys and pedals above and below, I can see, at last,
why organ solo
music I've heard
can sound like a whole orchestra of virtuosos. How lightly
he taps the keys, ocean
of rich basses circulating around the whole chapel, cloister,
and outer chambers—the tall pipes widely distributed
throughout the walls, as if the entire church is the vehicle
and body
of the instrument, the keyboards and pedal valves
a mere touch control
relay...Organ melody
outside the church, diffused, half-muffled by traffic,
is carried
afar, and, for moments, rushes close to the distant listener's
ears; but withindoors, the whole church interior
is charged with the music's amplified wave pulsings, notes
that seem to pass beyond
all time limits, as in Bruckner's symphonies. It's all a breathing,
influx and efflux
of lungs shaped
like tall pipes, the wide oval pipe tops releasing blent voices,
four voice octaves rolled
into the one chorale. . . . He chats with us now as he plays, simpler
passages he must know from memory. Keeps turning pages,
though. No mistakes. His movements all dancelike. I look and look
scrutinize
his hands, the faraway pipes, for clues to the miracle
of lightness of touch—
so feathery his patter
of the keys. Now the church walls seem to shudder,
the pipe mouths
recoiling upon the seeming pantomime of his performance,
a magic dumbshow of silently flicking the keys
with velvet-soft fingertips. And there is no way I can fathom
the hairlinefine exchanges
between his ten fingers' prowl of three keyboards and those distant
tall pipe-groanings,
pipe-wailings. . . .
We'll embark, today, on our mother-son, off-the-beaten-path
Island treks. So we attend
to his genial warnings. The bars are all dangerous. But back
in the ghettoes—we call it Over the Hill—the risk
of muggings, or worse, is critical. In broad day light. Chamber-
of-Commerce
won't hear of it, but, night or day, no hill or backwoods
sector is safe! Then,
why has he stayed on
these six months, braced for still another six, grit
and pluck
stamped on the cast of his jaw, his tall slender profile,
orange-freckled face, neck and arm. Now he stands,
for a moment, flashing his smile in the lit column of dust motes
whirling in a pool of sun
that pours through the skylight. He signals the three black nuns
in the chapel doorway
to step back!
So doing, their twenty-odd local charges (boys and girls
in equal numbers: ages
five to nine, say) come racing to the organ bench. He resumes,
playing his own transcriptions of nursery songs,
Christmas carols, a few native Island hymns—the children singing
out of tune,
getting the words wrong, no two in sync, but all
finding another home
to inhabit in the piped
lullabies and jingles. Two forward children squat
on the floor
near his feet, staying just clear of those pumping knees,
intrigued by his undulations—the split second
reflexes of his feet floating over the pedals. A round-faced
petite girls clambers
upon the organ cabinet, and sits, cross-legged, alongside
keyboards, memorizing
taps of his keys
beneath her legs. Two boys squeeze next to him, on opposite
ends of the bench; while many
form a ring around his seat, arms on each other's shoulders.
He sings with them, not to lead the tunes, but more
to tag along. The churchwomen scowl, from time to time—threaten
to send away
the few least controlled kids, but he calms them all
with his Hush, now! (finger
to his lips). The children,
asway, appear to dance from the hips, their legs bobbing
in place. . . . I
see two dozen blackbirds, or ravens, perched on his shoulders,
his balding scalp, weightless, hopping on jointed-twig
legs across his redhaired curly forearms, alighting on his knees,
his wrists. And one blackbird
lands on the tip of his nose, both perfectly still. Now it's
a black butterfly.
Those soft wings,
flapping, turn to petals of a black carnation, which fall
to his shirt lapel. . . . I waken
from a standup daydream, a bird romance, the blond organist
still playing singalong tunes—the kids humming offkey,
while they follow their holy guides, public maidservants (in God)
to the school
van parked in the rear, their short midday recess
come to a close. . . . he fears
he's losing his touch
at the organ knows he may well fail his instrumental
M.A. exam
when he sails back home to Seattle it's been such a hot summer
can't practice when he perspires so much for weeks
he's been soaking in his own stale body foeters. . . .No less
absorbed in his Bach scores,
for carrying on two conversations with mother, with me—he blossoms
musical feast for us. . . .
Laurence Lieberman, New and Selected Poems, 1962-1992, University
of Illinois Press, 1993.