Tuesday Poem: Messiaen Among The Dinosaurs

Messiaen Among The Dinosaurs

1. Old man with a notebook

They find Messiaen entranced in the magic hour

between dawn and the day’s heat

wandering the woodlands, skirting marshes,

annotating the contrasting calls

of pipit and nightjar. For many hours

he has been walking the forest fringes, lost

in the ecstasy of birdsong, until scientists,

deferential, insistent, come to fetch him home.

“Tell me again,” he says, Loriod

holding his hand. “Your Institute’s machine

will carry us backwards in time

to the epoch of dinosaurs, yes?

And you wish me to join you,

travel back, transcribe their calls?”

2. Such exotic birds

In the fern-enchanted glade, the composer

transcribes the calls of these gigantic birds,

their plumage flaring glamorously

along high necks and feathered rumps.

His guards are restless, watches

synchronised to the end of their brief window,

when time will snap back 120 million years

to the basement of the Institute,

fluorescents crackling overhead, experimenters

blinking like owls in the light of their return.

But Messiaen sits timeless, notebook on his lap,

oblivious to danger, the forest alive

with death’s roar, life’s fluting cry,

the staves and quavers of the dinosaurs.

3. At Clichy-la-Garenne

Death, three-clawed, yellow-eyed,

stalks the garden at Clichy-la-Garenne.

In the pale spring sunshine, notebook

fallen at his feet, sleeps Messiaen.

Loriod is at the piano, practising

Réveil des dinosaures for her next recital.

The notes attenuate among the cries

of great and lesser birds.

The authorities closed down the experiment

when the consequences became known.

Messiaen kept only memories, scores, scales,

the eggs he grew to fierce companions,

and the hymns of praise that throughout time

have soared from feathered throats.

Credit note: "Messiaen Among The Dinosaurs" was published in takahē 89. I'm reading that issue right now and there is lots of good stuff in there!

Tim says: After my poem about Dmitri Shostakovich's visit to America, which actually happened, I take the bird-obsessed Olivier Messiaen on a more science-fictional journey this time round. Why do I do these things to my favourite composers??

The real-life Messiaen, Yvonne and Jeanne Loriod, and Messiaen's remarkable music are all well worth exploring!