Old music in a new land

This is one of two poems that I read at the Tuggeranong Arts Centre on 17 November. It responds to a performance of Persian music at the Writers' Centre which I organised for the School of Music Poets earlier in the year.  The musicians were Salar Ayoubi (tar and vocals) and Farzin Jamatlou (tonbak) and Shahriar  Etemadi Tajbaksh normally a pianist, who provided vocals on this particular occasion. The tar is a plucked stringed instrument with two heart-shaped heads. The tonbak is a drum played with the fingers and hand.




you play your music
at the Writers' Centre
music of the old -
framed above you
is a woman with a cat
she is the new -
dressed in the blue
of oceans
between two countries
her cat is the old -
your drum -
curled with throbbing purr
the cat listens -
the woman listens -
you do not know her
but music brings
different ones together

your tar holds two hearts
end to end -
point of departure -
point of arrival -
intertwining
old and new
this is how it must be
making music together
sharing the old
in a new land -
you play your music
at the Writers' Centre -
you play
a script for the future -
the world depends
on this




© hazel SS hall
31 October 2012