Listening to Bach's Unaccompanied Cello Suite
No. 1 in G Major: First Wave Spring
I. Prelude
First the turning, a funnel of bowing
blowing through a greening field
the horizon stretching octaves
the fingering a slap to the fretless neck
quickening, quickening return
to the entrance with more, more
II. Allemande
Strong pose, the dancer salutes
first position and the arms claim
the full floor the complete stage turn
and post, the arms a basket gathering
witnesses to the lifting held by the bass,
the wood of the body, the woods of unknowing
the woods, the wood the bole of the tree
this searching and the player's breath
III. Courante
Fingers trot like ponies
the race the digging the gallop
determined, this way, this way
O, certainty of wind, the vane
steadies, no trembles
nodding pony
IV. Sarabande
The river empties its mouth into the lake
of my dreams where the swimmer
climbs against the Corrib's body,
just skin for a suit in this cold,
one final loop around the curragh anchored
close to the pier, her cap, white as the waves'
V. Menuets I & II
Old form the greeting
gone for now
just the wave and lovely afternoon,
fine evening isn't it
how to learn the names
of neighbours, and theirs
shifting our walk
in this tight radius
VI. Gigue
Now you're talking tapping
the heel and palm
the nodding of everything
shortest notes frill above
legato taking it higher
in and out and stop
Jamie O’Halloran is an American-Irish poet whose Corona Connemara & Half a Crown was awarded second place in the 2021 Fool for Poetry Chapbook Competition. Her poems appear most recently in Southword, Skylight 47 and The Honest Ulsterman. She lives above a river in Connemara with her husband, one cat and two donkeys.
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