This poem was inspired by the performances of the Takacs Quartet on December 6 & 7, 2010 in Portland, Oregon.

Margaret Chula
Friends of Chamber Music's Poet Laureate

Mesto
Bela Bartok's Quartet No. 6 composed in Budapest, 1939 

Damp cave in a foreign land. A woman sits
surrounded by a circle of stones to protect her
from the night creatures that crawl and fly.
Day and night, night and day measured
by the stitches she unravels from a sweater
left by her beloved—taken away
how many months ago?

Every day she knits it back together.
The smell of her beloved is fading—fading
too the colors. Demon bats sweep down—
seize skeins of yarn in their greedy claws.
Her hair, greasy and thin, no longer attractive
to man or beast.

Nazis strut by—
their staccato words
barbs of fear
crackling through
the cavity
of her hideaway.

A deep cello sound resounds in her ears,
then nails scratching on ancient walls.
A turmoil of desire. A disturbing dissonance.
Her last day, an intermezzo. She stumbles
out into the spring sunshine, blinded
with joy. The grass is cool and fragrant.
Wildflowers begin their bloom.

Today she will rest from her task, draping
the yarn over her famine-swollen belly.
How sweet the lark’s song. How slowly
the heart beats at the end.

Vultures carry away strands of yarn
in their beaks. Lifting off, they flap
their heavy black wings, bound
for their aeries in the sky.


Mesto: Italian for "sad" and "sorrowful"