Frances Nagle: Beethoven In Love

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BEETHOVEN IN LOVE
In love again he writes Romance in G for her - she is seventeen. According to Aesop, one sultry summer's noon Cupid, tired of play and faint from the heat, flung himself down in a sunless cave and slept. The way the violin begins, alone, - that fall from G to F, it's serious, grows out of wounds. He is thirty-one but already knows his deafness is for keeps. Cupid, not knowing this cave belonged to Death, had chucked down his quiver, scattering arrows all over the floor to mingle with those of his host. Menuhin plays it with wisdom he is too young to have learned first hand, the double-stopped theme so slow a halting heart must be its metronome. The orchestra, a grieving Chorus, echoes him. But here is the girl slipping into the first variation; Beethoven swings from despair to hope to despair. The theme again, a touch faster. The Chorus warns: Take care. Take care. When Cupid awoke he gathered his arrows (never a thought that they might not be all his arrows) and stuffed them into his quiver. Refreshed by sleep he scampered out to play. In the second variation his heart, ungoverned, hurtles pell-mell towards her; NOW is the only moment that exists. And the theme returning for the final time ascends like lark-song to heaven; beyond. The orchestra rejoices: Life Life Life - Death is bemused when sometimes he fires with lethal aim into a heart that is old, and it pounds faster and faster with boundless passion. Beethoven hungers all his life for high-born young ladies quite out of his reach. And dies, some say, of syphilis.
FRANCES NAGLE

BEETHOVEN IN LOVE

In love again
he writes Romance in G
for her - she is seventeen.

According to Aesop, one sultry summer's noon
Cupid, tired of play and faint from the heat,
flung himself down in a sunless cave and slept.

The way the violin begins, alone, - that fall from G to F,
it's serious, grows out of wounds. He is thirty-one
but already knows his deafness is for keeps.

Cupid, not knowing this cave belonged to Death,
had chucked down his quiver, scattering arrows all over the floor
to mingle with those of his host.

Menuhin plays it with wisdom he is too young to have learned first hand,
the double-stopped theme so slow a halting heart must be its metronome.
The orchestra, a grieving Chorus, echoes him.

But here is the girl slipping into the first variation;
Beethoven swings from despair to hope to despair. The theme again,
a touch faster. The Chorus warns: Take care. Take care.

When Cupid awoke he gathered his arrows (never a thought that they
might not be all his arrows) and stuffed them into his quiver.
Refreshed by sleep he scampered out to play.

In the second variation his heart, ungoverned,
hurtles pell-mell towards her; NOW
is the only moment that exists.

And the theme returning for the final time ascends like lark-song
to heaven; beyond. The orchestra rejoices:
Life Life Life

-

Death is bemused when sometimes he fires with lethal aim
into a heart that is old, and it pounds faster and faster
with boundless passion.

Beethoven hungers all his life for high-born young ladies
quite out of his reach. And dies, some say,
of syphilis.

FRANCES NAGLE

Frances Nagle lives in Marple Bridge, Cheshire, UK. The favourite of her various part-time jobs is running workshops in schools and with groups of adults. She is the Distance Learning Tutor in Creative Writing for Macclesfield College. Her first full-length collection was "Steeplechase Park" (Rockingham Press). She awaits a publisher for her book of children's poems, "The Naked Teacher". She reviews poetry for Envoi.

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