Dear Reader, you are reading  the first post on my first blog.

Pregnant silence.

That’s right, Veronique is blogging. On these pages, I plan to post one poem or story or piece of writing a week, until I run out of material or inspiration, which doesn’t seem likely at this point. I wrote so many poems and stories over the years that I do not know where to put them anymore. They spill from my computer drive, from my notebooks, from under my bed. I have to do something about it. I decided to put them up on the wall, online.

Oh, where to start! Difficult question.

This year has been most fabulous. Partly because I met a musician, a pianist, who put wind under my wings, so that suddenly I found myself considering and doing things I had never done before: buying an IPhone, flying to Seattle, starting a blog. I said partly, as I don’t want to put all the responsibility on him.
This first poem is not particularly esoteric. I subscribe to a classical music page on FaceBook, where I discovered that a running joke for musicians is that the world’s plague is Pachelbel’s Canon.  This shocked me and saddened me. Maybe it means that although I love classical music, I am not a professional musician. But I had to answer. Here it is:

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PACHELBEL CANON IN D

Dear “cellist” who was bored to death
During those gazillion weddings
When you had to play Pachelbel’s Canon
And the 8 notes you had to repeat 54 times :
D, A, B, F#, G, D, G, A
I am sorry to hear it was a chore to you
And I hope you found a better way to make a living.

And now if you don’t mind, I would like to replace
Your sad story with mine.

I don’t remember the material details
My studio in Angers, where the CD player was
What was on the CD cover photo
I am not certain about the window open
on the street market Place Imbach.

What I remember was that it was early in my life
Early enough to be spring,
But not early morning either
It was a grey spring morning with dew on the grass
When Pachelbel’s Canon started.
It was just an awakening,
It was a little like sunrise, and every gentle chord stroke
An arpeggio that drew a rainbow
On every dewdrop.

I remember that the sun slowly rose
And that nature was unfolding
Each blade of grass so distinct
Every leaf unfurling in the mint-green light
And I can swear that every single musician
In that specific recording
Was trying to tell me something:
That they were under the spell –
Especially the cello section –
That they wanted very hard to convey the message
That they would make me FEEL it
Whether I liked it or not.

And I do remember the lake
But not how I got there
And walking around it
Among the iridescent pearls of sound
Lining up and scintillating before trickling down to the grass
In gentle drops.
Each instrument brought its string in turn
To build the spider web’s spiral
Each competing with the next
To weave the most vivid tapestry
A thread of red silk, now golden, now bright green
Contrasted with a darker brown.
This multicolor universe was bathing me
In tones of green and woodsy notes and lifting fog.

And it was a slow crescendo,
As I stepped around the labyrinth.
Until the glory of noon made its entrance
And far too soon it was over

And still dizzy with the visions of the otherworld,
I had found my way back to this time of my youth.

I have not heard it very often since
But when I do
It is still spring in Angers.