Today is Day 623 of the daily poems. Four days ago ‘Roman Trilogy’ was an example of musical ekphrasis by poet Anne Symons “after hearing Respighi’s symphonic poems”. Today our poet Dennis Tomlinson responds: “Anne Symons’s masterly poem reminds me that I wrote an experimental ekphrastic poem years ago, images that came to my mind while listening to a recording of JS Bach‘s famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor.”
Bach Toccata and Fugue in D minor
Straws blow over the dark-brown earth,
waters running hidden below.
Starlings are turning in a great cloud
and far away thunder sounds.
Water in a ditch
under the first drops of rain.
Every raindrop a gleaming world
vibrating to the Creator’s voice –
echoes from the beginning.
Rain, rain, we’ve never seen such rain
since our neighbour Jim built a ship
on his front lawn for the world to see.
And the windows of heaven were opened.
Dennis Tomlinson