Full Circle

Mute, unyielding cello resting in the corner. My dear ship your sails furled, the rigging still strung on tightened ebony pegs of the main mast. Bow and bridge, bow sprit plying the stages in oceans of notes one hand moving to and fro, steadying the course of notes and guiding, pulling and plucking the waves of sound while the other charts the path with precise tension and stress, rocking back and forth coaxing the sound waves to their purest and fullest measure cutting through the mid crest as clean as a knife edged keel plying rough seas or slicing the calm with scarcely a whisper of elegant sanctified sound. You are too lonely there. We must take one last voyage together you and I. Here let me embrace you once more and tell me all is not lost in this sea of pain. Come, friend, let me grasp thee close. I have thee not and yet I see thee still. Sisyphus was not alone I see. These covers they are warm and deep, but I my instrument do seek and ere I play I dare not sleep and dare I play to stare the deep. Rest gently on my shoulder while I stroke you and our embrace will be a fond farewell to our life together. You my dear will go on for centuries to come. A new millennium awaits. Your maple once stood tall and filled with life through veins and cells. I was living in the forest the cruel ax did slay me living I was mute dead I sweetly sing Far more life than I for you came to life after you died and the music of the spheres in your cells resonated with the music of mankind and so you will continue after I have passed out of harbor this night. But what am I but a paltry thing a tattered coat upon a stick unless I, too clap hands and sing and louder play until this music consumes my heart away and frees it from this dying animal flinging it into the artifice of eternity? But after that? What musician waits to play on my bones and sinews? I am food for worms. I doubt they'll appreciate me any more than some of my critics in this lifetime - indigestion all around. Neither matters in the end for even now I close my eyes and see the stage lights and beyond the misty eyes of my darling thousands holding their common breath as runs and trills and flying fingers and bow flash like iridescent pike through herring before their eyes and seek out their very souls. But for now bones must play bones. C D E F G A B C/C sharp D D sharp E F F sharp G G sharp A A sharp B C The building blocks of life: Credo Domine Ergo Fidelie Gloriam Aeternam. To B how do we get to B? To B or not to be that is the key. Away with you silk coverlet your scheming folds hold me prisoner here, your seductive royal purple a mockery to my weakness. Royal indeed! Though queen I once was. Now were I to appear on stage my public would weep for shame and pity. Even now they keep a deathwatch at the Times to run my obituary. Yet one's public exit is not the same nor nearly so personal as the private one. I played so many farewell concerts, truly a financial grand finale to my career. The grand headlines, CHELLSIA BLOOM'S FAREWELL TOUR, Auf Wiedersehen Mein Blumen AU REVOIR NOTRE FLEUR, BYE BYE BOUQUET,

Throughout public school education in Connellsville, Pa and Delaware, Ohio, author Fran Pope developed a passion for literature and writing from an early age. She graduated from The Ohio State University with a B.A. in English Literature and pursued further studies in Library Science and English at The University of Michigan, studying the works of James Joyce at both schools. She is a violinist with two community orchestras and founder/CEO of the non-profit Winn Academy of Music, www.winnmusic.org She makes her home with her husband, four cats, fish, a bird, and a confused Labrador retriever in the Pacific Northwest.