Last Night in Lygon Street
Hear that fiddle, quavery
but singing a familiar tune?
Greensleevesš - so evergreen.
To its wordless melody
phrases float up from
my imperfect memory.
Shešs jilted him, hešs lilting on
the other words, Išve never quite
got them sorted out.
Keening through the dusk
above the traffic noise, itšs
some busking violinist
under the Lygon Street
curving tin verandas
by the flower stall look,
isnšt the fiddler man
familiar too?
old colleague, McCann
(philosophy, retired),
still with the sad face
and the gaberdine mac.
Pension (I might ask)
not enough? Neitheršs
mine I ought to busk
myself, but lack the tools,
the nerve, the skills.
And therešs not much in his hat -
how much could he earn?
Honestly, this smallish coin
is all I can spare him.
I sidle past unrecognised.
Could it be moneyšs not
what hešs after, but to test
some theory once sketched
in ethics class, when someone
objected: 'In the real world...'?
Or in aesthetics,
what if the less-skilled version
moves one more than the most?
Wednesday 22 August 2007
Max Richards
Doncaster, Victoria
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