On that first Australian adventure
The concerts were fulsome
Overflowing across that post-war hunger
With black velvet and coco fur
With benediction and youthful ardour.

Then
Country towns
Like Wollongong and Toowoomba
Heard the Schwarzkopf sound.
 
In her mid thirties, “sweet beyond compare”
One can achingly imagine
Melbourne imbibing that ecstatic Marietta’s Lied
The Town Hall bathed in light and love.
 
One by one the rosenblum unfold
[Memory must suffice]
Rarest Beethoven and Delius
Songs by Smetana and Tchaikovsky
[In sweetest evanescence]
Artifacts she never recorded.
 
So the uttered music
Flooded outwards
With the arc of the moonlight
On that dry planet
“Cleaving space” and airwaves
With the solitude of grace.
 
Across the coastal plains
Day begets unending movement
Like war time music making
A panoramic dot on the snaking trail
Linking region with region, concert with concert.
 
On that sparse road
She asks her suited chaperone to stop the car.
 
Somewhere
Between Toowoomba and Brisbane
Her lungs fill with the salt sea air.
The waves glisten
The vivid light
Almost bleaches time away.
 
Here on the endless strand
Suppressed memories
Graze her whitened skin.
 
Her people (the Germans)
Worshipped the sun
And hailed the bronzed body
As nascent Hitler Jugend.
 
In this moment
The old world and new coalesce
“Into the planetary tune
Of sun-directed influence”.
 
Her clothes fall near her feet.
The youthful goddess
Naked
Runs towards the sea
And forgets her bitter past:


Gar Jones:  June 2017

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