IRENE NOEL-BAKER   Poet
Translator of Greek literary works
Psychologist
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Poetry

Artemis Poems (IV)
Departure
Dutiful Wife
Eros in Piccadilly
Erotisis (Question)
Facing Hydra
Fair Hermia
Homage to Sylvia Plath
Homewards
Jalousie
Letters Home (I)
Letters Home (II)
Letters Home (III)
Letters Home (IV)
Letters Home (V)
Marriage
Masquerade
Mystery
Old Flame
Old Photos
Parsifal
Parsifal II
Persephone to Demeter
The Church at Malaucene
The Music
Train Journey

 

Greek Translations

Άρτεμις IV
Μασκαράτα
Στο Τραίνο

 

Related pages

Changing the Story
River Work

Erotisis (Question)

What is so special about music?
Is it knowing that there will be
A solution here, in this place?

Your question explains itself
In the slow, rhythmical unfolding
Of desire, each end a new beginning
As the wave turns to find
Solace in an acknowledgement of pain
Dragging back from the shore.

If music is the desire for a question
Unfolding in simplicity,
Gentle as the search for intimacy,
Violent as the sea
Each wave another wave overcoming,

Then music will take you
Back to the beginning
Again and again,
With the knowledge that
There is an adequate response
Reclaiming all that was

Lost out of tired hands
Pilfered from busy minds
Ready
With the sound that lays down
In a question
The promise of its own reply.

© Irene Noel-Baker (2024)