An Autumn Vignette
Roy Lazarus
24 June 2009, 23:06The mezzo-soprano of Ella syncopates with the tenor of the philosophical toads and occludes her soul. Another autumn evening by the creek outside the lonely manor. She rocks gently in her wicker chair and strains her ears. “Good morning heartache…croak, you old gloomy sight…croak croak…” The portière over the French door is tremulous. She thinks it is the breeze. And yet the breeze is outside, the portière inside. Only yesterday the tadpoles turned into toads and today they sing: “Life a truism, love a Diophantine Equation”. Diophantine equations – he used to talk about them. The mottled willow with curled up, wrinkled leaves leans over the water stained with a patina of floating moss and watches a pearly tear take shape. A ménage à trois between Raphael, Duchamp and Rothko in that order: she in her wicker chair by the tenderloin creek. He ran the gauntlet of numbers and didn’t survive. What was he thinking? “Good morning heartache…croak…Here we go again…croak croak…” She blinks and they in alarm roll down her cheek. Through the moist film of cataract the green is just green, the peat peat and the world an arabesque of sorrows. The church bells, they toll in death knell; she jerks her head and catches a crinkled willow leaf frozen in mid-flight.
