Francis Fernandes
Lull in the Time of Corona
Glenn Gould, the Bach specialist,
When not hunched over the keyboards
On his favourite stool, used to proffer
His hand to fellow musicians and journalists
Only at the last second to pull it away
And run it through his hair. We all know
That move from school. It was a joke,
A prank, just clowning around.
But for this genius it was as much
Fear of the other as impish horseplay.
And then there’s that famous anecdote
Where he gets a call from his colleague
Alfred Brendel, who is on a stopover
At Pearson International Airport:
During the conversation the German
Pianist, having caught a cold,
Can’t hold back a sneeze, and without
A moment’s delay Gould hangs up on him.
Those were certainly the good old days:
Innocent germs, the global oil crisis
And that awesome Summit Series of ’72.
But, hey, we are all hypochondriacs now.
We can’t help it. The lineups at the clinics
Are blocks long. There’s no more school.
No more hockey. No more concerts
(Although that would have suited Glenn,
Ensconced forever, as he was,
In the bubble of his recording studio).
So what are we to do?
We do the elbow bumps and footshakes.
Peace sign, namaste. Or we flout
Convention and shove our neighbour
To get at the merchandise. We buy
More guns. As for me, I’m not much
Of a musician, nor am I good
At improvising. And so I go running
Through the woods, picking up stray leaves
And stuffing them in the pockets
Of my jogging pants – seeing as toilet
Paper is so scarce. A precious commodity,
That. It’s become the rare-earth metal
Of Households. I heard that the real
Rare-earth metal in our cell phones
Most likely comes from a heavily guarded
Mine somewhere in Mongolia.
Which makes me wonder if the trucks
Filled with toiletry supplies will soon
Need an armed escort. My mother
Would tell us stories of the privations
They had to overcome in Nazi Germany,
The sacrifices they all made,
The little things that thrilled,
Like homemade jam and Mendelssohn.
We are at war, too, according to a leader.
“Nous sommes en guerre!” certainly
Makes it sound as though
We had a common enemy. Another leader,
Who is as good at ruffling his hair
As Gould, wants to do it his way,
Calling upon the people to forge
An alliance: “We must build immunity!”
While the Czar declares, “L’état c’est moi!”
And a clown President wonders
Where all his fans went to.
They’re closing factories for a while,
Some forever. White-collar employees
Are working on their laptops from home.
The sun is shining and the birch trees
Have begun to pollinate (which doesn’t
Make the jogging any easier for me).
And so being the cad that I am,
The incorrigible slacker, I get my friend,
Who’s my GP, to certify a paid sick leave.
Somehow that makes me feel unpatriotic.
As consolation, I decide to watch
The eight games (on DVD): that
Canada-Russia Super Series from ’72,
“The most dramatic hockey series
Ever played” (the same year, by the way,
That Gould’s record company released
The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2).
The whole point being: I’m tired
Of glancing at my cell phone
And keeping track of the number
Of infected people in my vicinity.
(The number is growing at an alarming
rate!) What I really want to do
Is relive a bit of the glory I felt
When I was only five. When I hadn’t
Yet grown to love Goldberg and Gould’s
Isolation. When the only numbers
I saw were the goals scored
And the only voice I heard cried out
“Scores! Henderson has scored…”
Francis Fernandes writes: I am a Canadian expat living in Germany. Until now I’ve been teaching English in a private language school, but what with the current global crisis I am now spending the days eating cake, sipping espresso, and going over some of my poems.
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