Liederabend (Evening Song)

Black. Three-legged.
Strong. Tense with a thousand nerves,
headless, your head is
a human on a stool,
your teeth are shaking and falling
apart, old thing, and yet
your mouth opens
in a tongueless yawn and sings
of greener days and golden suns.
Tonight, the sky is not the colour
of the sea, not the colour of your
bright low eyes, tonight the sky
is velvet blue, a curtain
to drape around your coffin,
old bull, to wear around your neck
when you venture out under the snow
to see your resting place,
to check it's fit
and plant a seed nearby
so you'll have something to look at
while awaiting resurrection.
Will you come back, my dear,
as a red flower? Will you
come back at all?
Should I follow the seed to the tree
to the saw to the truck to the world,
and search every shop window
to find your smell under the paint
of the finest Bösendorfer?
I might die myself,
dear bull, you know,
before I ever found you.
Age is catching up with me,
with all of us, not only with the old.
I can't distinguish youthfulness
from Tuesdays anymore.
Mute as I've become, hairless,
almost skinless -can't tell my flesh from meat-,
I stick to this image from twenty years ago
when you and I had everything to learn
and would do so.
The two of us alone under the spotlight,
dazzling a whole flock of spectators
-only two ties onstage:
to life, and to each other,
and age, my love,
is catching up with both.

Lavaca mooed back at a whole recital for piano and bariton (December 2nd, 2008).
The program included works by Robert Schumann, Hugo Wolf and Franz Schubert.