ICH RUF ZU DIR. . .
( for Mimi )
1.
brushes her hair in the mirror
she stares Death full in the face
the heart attack catching her off guard
11.
Dusk walks off
into the distance
Night speaks slowly….quietly
111.
Green shadows
lilac shadows
never just
black
1V.
gooseberries…geraniums…sherbet
those things of childhood
she both liked & didn’t
V.
I only half listen to them, smug in their snug, poets scoring points off each other over the odd pint or two or more. . .
“Ahhh now Jaysus...your oyster always gives me the collywobbles. Every time I encounter an oyster I think of Chekov’s corpse and sure the appetite goes off of me!”
“Is that right?”
“That’ right so it is!”
“Sure when poor Chekov became a corpse...he was kept on ice with the oysters and shipped to Moscow. So it’s always Chekov’s auld face I see( ya see )when I come face to face with an oyster. I think of him being extracted from his shell and slipping slowly down Death’s throat.
“Ahhh Jaysus...Jaysus sure isn’t Death a terrible man altogether for the poets and such like. But come here to me when I’m talking to ya...have ya ever heard tell of a fella called.. if memory serves me well. . .Qui ****-Haung-ti?”
“Qui ****-Haung-ti? Eh, let’s see now...ahh...no...now…I don’t believe I have had that pleasure? Who he? For God’s sake!
“ Sure wasn’t yer man only the first supreme ruler of China!”
“He wasn’t..!”
“He was...I declare to God!”
“And sure for 9 months, 9 months now I tell ya, after his death he continued to reign seated upon his throne...surrounded by fish!”
“Well, that’s as posthumous as ya can get! But, why...the fish?”
“To disguise the smell...ya ejit!”
“And that’s why I can’t stand either sight or sound of our scaly friends. It gives me the creep I tell ya!”
“Fair enough!”
“Will ya have another?”
“Ahhh sure, I will so!”
V1.
bitter gooseberries
V11.
I pray to my granny’s apron full of stars and flowers…only a rag now for shining shoes; to my uncle’s auld hat that that sat for years and years on the brown dresser like a dried up soul.
To my other uncle’s battered boots still caked with mud from summer’s long long ago which now houses a kitten that can’t get out mewing pitifully its plight:
V111.
the gooseberry’s bitterness
Solaris...was it
floating in space
back to Bach...ich ruf zu dir...
1X.
she holds the gooseberry
between finger and thumb
her eyes devouring it
X.
the sun shone through it
a prism of living light
snow is falling
in the room
from which she first
saw snow
falling
she stands outside
falling through time
X1.
she listens to the wheat
the wheat listens to her listening
the wind moves them both
X11.
in the story of her
childhood there are
always gooseberries
X111.
the words dress themselves up
walk around in stories
showing off
X1V.
she prays to the green light
of the gooseberry that is
the God of living things
XV.
the mirror holds her reflection
even when she’s gone
Death hums its little tune
XV1.
“They’re better fed than read...”
as my grandmother said
about anyone other than our selves
XV11.
he thought the good idea...was his
she thought the good idea...was hers
XV111.
he said he will( but he won’t )
she said she won’t( but she will )
X1X.
the mirror can’t find her
anywhere
she’s fallen off the edge of a flat world
*
The title emerges from Bach's BWV 177 - "Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ"
Cantata for the Fourth Sunday after Trinity
Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ,
Ich bitt, erhör mein Klagen,
Verleih mir Gnad zu dieser Frist,
Laß mich doch nicht verzagen;
I call to You, Lord Jesus Christ,
I beg You, hear my cries,
grant me mercy at this time,
do not let me despair;
The soundtrack of SOLARIS features Johann Sebastian Bach's chorale prelude for *****, Ich ruf' zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 639, played by Leonid Roizman, and an electronic score by Eduard Artemyev. The prelude is the film's central musical theme.
Tarkovsky initially wanted the film to be devoid of music and asked composer Artemyev to orchestrate ambient sounds as a musical score. The latter proposed subtly introducing orchestral music. In counterpoint to classical music as Earth's theme is fluid electronic music as the theme for the planet Solaris.
The character of Hari has her own subtheme, a cantus firmus based upon J. S. Bach's music featuring Artemyev's composition atop it; it is heard at Hari's death and at story's end.
The memory of the movie...of the two drunks in the pub....of the music...her childhood memories of gooseberries all hail the prelude to her...death.... memories lie shattered and scattered like the hand mirror fallen from her hand...reflecting all and nothing.
A sequence poem that attempts to mimic the strands of the choral movements sustained by a single voice a la Mr. Bach.
Whatever is in the head when Mr. Death comes calling.