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“At Hexham” A poem by David Wright
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In the South Aisle of the Abbey at Hexham | I turned to make a remark on its Roman | Tomb; but she did not hear me, for the organ | Was playing in the loft above the rood-screen, | Laying down tones of bronze and gold, a burden | Of praise-notes, fingerings of a musician | There at the keys, a boy, his master by him, | Whose invisible sound absorbed my saying.
Music inaudible to me, barbarian, | But legible. I read in my companion | Its elation written in her elation. | ‘He is so young he can be only learning, | You would not have expected to hear such playing. | It's like a return to civilization.’ | Unable to hear, able to imagine | Chords pondering decline, and then upwelling
There in that deliberate enclave of stone, | I remembered music was its tradition; | Its builder, Acca, taught by one Maban | To sing; who may have been the god of song, | Mabon the god of music and the young; | That another bishop of this church, St John, | Taught here a dumb man speech, says Bede; became | Patron and intercessor of deaf men.
“At Hexham” A poem by David Wright
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