"7 Papillons for Cello After Kaija Saariaho" by Michael Templeton
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Templeton is a writer, independent scholar, guitar player, barista, and cook. He is the author of The Chief of Birds: A Memoir published with Erratum Press and Impossible to Believe, forthcoming from Iff Books. He is also the author of Collected Apoems, forthcoming from LJMcD Communications and the awaiting of awaiting: a novella, forthcoming from Nut Hole Publishing. He has published articles and essays on contemporary culture and numerous works of creative non-fiction as well as experimental works and poetry. He lives in the middle of nowhere in Ohio.
1. The papillon is become the sounds of the cello, the vibrations and sympathies of string with bow and string with string as the bow is pulled across the strings at just the correct angles and exerting just the right pressures, even at times the bow itself vibrating along the varying angles, tensions, and resistances just as the papillon varies from note to note and from note to chord, with vibrato on the string and the reverberations in the body of the cello and in the body of the papillon.
2. I’ll find a butterfly on the black petunias next to the fennel that is perhaps the same as the papillon of the cello, each drying their wings on the black petunias next to the fennel while the cello, in its nearly imperceptible way, stirs the air like the butterfly does with its wings against the slow breeze, as the cello stirs the breeze with string and bow.
3. There is the famous story of the butterfly who dreamed of being a man, and a man who dreamed of being the butterfly just as there is the equally famous theory of the butterfly whose imperceptible stirrings of its wings spawned a hurricane thousands of miles away, and I often wonder if both of these butterflies are in fact the papillon who flies from the cello to dry its wings on the black petunias next to the fennel.
4. Everything I write is so simple that the butterfly could understand it, and so could the papillon, and all of it is as plain as the sound of the cello.
5. When the cello dries its wings on the black petunias next to the fennel, the papillon must search for another place to land and dry its wings. Perhaps it lands on the table beside me in the direct sunlight, or maybe it continues to fly and flutter until it can land on the black petunias next to the fennel.
6. Some of us are sacred and invisible even though we can be seen exactly where we are seen right now, listening to the papillon and the butterfly and the cello.
7. If the cello wanted to continue, it is free to do so with or without the papillon or the butterfly, but it is best if the cello remains in harmony with the papillon, unless the cello also worked with the snow.