N

 

[N]

 

From head to foot

the lover to his beloved is drawn

Yet love is unstable

like the crossbar of the letter N.

From day into night

lovers are drawn by their world of yes

yet love is tempered

with times they needs must say No.

 

The lover and his beloved each name

their love face to face

like the pathway that invites no End.

Yet lovers learn what’s new, and the same

their love remembered,

the cross-meanings that live with their Names.

 

 

The four-line poem for the letter N in Vitezslav Nezval’s alphabet book ‘Abeceda’ (1926) opens this metaphysical sonnet. Translation from the Czech is by Jindřich Toman & Matthew S. Witkowsky, published in 2001.  

 

 

N (May)

When Glenn Gould wrote The Idea of North he didn’t mean The Fact of North. Voices and soundscapes were his friends. The main motif was a train, that would terminate, leaving his friends staring at icy snow. Canada’s like that, white as day. Only by going to Tasmania does it occur that Tasmanians have their own Idea of North. It’s a vast, difficult city of multiplying voices, across the water, that remains in their minds long after they’ve switched off the light. May writes an Idea in some Melburnians of a certain age, a permanent aquamarine soundscape called Deep North.

N (February)

N is for Night, the quiet, later, at nine’s stroke, when the television chatters in another room, mutely. N is for forgotten Names. N is for Novel, leafed pages, later, the cat napping, when our author increases the underlying suspense, silently. N is for ridiculous Numbers. N is for Never, the thought, sometimes, at drowsy shut-eye, that the day today will never repeat, thankfully. N is for sleepy Notes. O is for Orange, the line, early, of first light, when our alphabets yes resume amid habitual chance, familiarly. O is for Order, the amusing rightness of eccentric February, ordinary Sunday.

N (September)

September 2016. Dear N., been thinking of you. You are not me, you’re entirely yourself and must become more you. First time we met I felt there was no one like you. There’s no way of going back to before I knew you. The present is where we carry around the past, things we would’ve done differently, things we cannot undo. Even now the present changes inside us, the more we reflect, the more we find faith. Even our names change meaning over time. Yours ever is hardly a meaningful sign-off. How about, yours in the fullness of time, N.