David Mark Williams
Shush
Almost as soon as I settle down to listen
to Beethoven’s String Quartet in F Minor,
The Quartetto Serioso, ready to enter this
delicately garnered space, my daughter
in the next room begins to whistle.
Ludwig’s flamboyant progress
is instantly demolished. There is no contest.
For her whistle is absolute now.
It has reached a pinnacle of shrillness,
piercing every corner of the house.
A whistle worthy of a butcher’s boy,
it has been years in the making.
The early efforts barely a sound at all,
a jet of breath to blow out birthday candles
or release a shower of dandelion seeds.
Later on the first notes were realised,
stray airs like a piping breeze
a faint ghost of a whistle pursuing me
to which I was commanded to listen.
Now all that practice has created this device
to shatter my flimsy elaborations of peace.
Each time I think it is about to finish,
it strikes up again unabated.
In my head, I rehearse interventions,
seeing myself rise from my chair,
to ask her please to shush,
to shut it. But the truth
is I cannot bring myself to do this
and I know I won’t
ever stop this unconsidered joy,
this glorious noise
of which she is the instrument.
Page(s) 27
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