To Beirut by Virginia Hainsworth

Amidst a maelstrom of threats, lurks the unseen enemy. It is transported on a whisper and contaminates the unwary.  It settles and spreads.  Breath by breath and touch by touch, it covers the planet.  A patina of anxiety rests over everything and everyone.

Your city, like others, is learning to dodge and weave around this nightmare, this unshackling of our worst fears as human beings.  And yet, you are noticing anew the small things in life.  Appreciating again what really matters – a skill we lost and are slowly regaining.

And then, devastation.  As if you don’t have enough to endure, an explosion of fire and what little security you think you had, is blown to the skies.  The dust settles and spreads.  More death.  More homelessness.  What is left to come?

And yet, through a window whose glass is shattered by the blast, net curtains flutter.  Amidst the broken contents of an apartment, a piano is heard.  Sweet notes fly abroad to settle and spread.  To soothe, if only for a moment.  The strains of Auld Lang Syne are lifted to the darkened skies.  A shaft of light, of music in the middle of desolation.  How beautiful a sound.

 

 Inspired by video footage of an elderly woman playing Auld Lang Syne on the piano in her devastated apartment, shortly after the explosion in the port area of Beirut.

 

August 2020