Dear You

We watched them from safe distance...

January?
1976?

Dear you,
 
Of course the joy of it was that they thought they’d not been seen. No idea we were there! None at all. We watched them from safe distance. Saw their comings and goings, and marvelled, they’re much like us.
 
Lights out, sleep now,
X

I’m at the Palazzo dell’ Isola Bella, and it suits me well...

Italiana
1934
 
Dear you,
 
To the back teeth, I am fed up. I always knew it was a possibility to change. Well, I was right. I really can change my spotted coat. Tired of being the but of the joke, always, I am tending my superficial wounds in Italy. I’m at the Palazzo dell’ Isola Bella, and it suits me well.
 
Yours in gilded frame hung upon the wall,
X

Feet move fast, so fast they are winged...

Dear you,

It was in a hail of blossom and beauty executed to seemingly effortless timed perfection that I found myself deliciously drowning. Seated in the hushed red velvet stalls, the music it crept and then roared, and Madame Butterfly she unfurled her delicate wings so readily crumpled. It was in Nagasaki long ago; it was now with Love and Loss as our guides. They whisper and they boom a story orchestrated to reach into one’s very chest and grab at the heart. Not gingerly. I said, grab. Those dancers, they must know that they pull upon long giant and golden ropes from inside the fleshy trunks of all seated in the theatre. Pulling at heartstrings, literally, why, this is the stuff to make your forearms prickle. Goosebumps! These physical sensations, all part of the thrill. Not merely a heady experience, this ride is for the body too.

Swords gleam and lanterns glow, feet move fast, so fast they are winged, I am sure. Such delicious beguilement. Cannot we go again? Cannot we be woven into that tale where we are all sure of foot and our step light?

Yours blinded by the footlights and with giant soaring leap,
X

[Sunday 23rd June, 2013: Written in response to The Australian Ballet's production of Madame Butterfly, postcards such as this now take the form of lengthier pieces for Fjord Review (Vanguard, The Australian Ballet's 50th Anniversary Gala, and Stephen Baynes' Swan Lake).]