Music by Arvo Pärt

The Estonian composer Arvo Pärt celebrates his 75th birthday on 11 September 2010. Allow me to blog a poem that I wrote in 1987, attempting to convey some impression of his work, or of one of his works. The poem appeared in the magazine Streetwise, from St Matthew's church, Cambridge.

Music by Arvo Pärt

The bell rhymes are dole, toll, soul, and the like.
Dole as the old word, sorrow, is all
binding the tones of such a toll.
Soul of live grief, poured through suspensions,

fall under fall, fall under fall,

sings deeper in the weeping strings
to hold a consonance made whole,
and bell tolls still