When Music was the Food of Love The Suburban Village #4

Small, frail and white haired lady, less
timid than she looked, of great
antiquity, who taught me (in a way
of speaking) the piano -
though in more truthful terms,
I'd have to say, she gave me lessons
and I soaked them up. I loved
those hours of practise and tuition
and if the music left me, not unmoved,
but somehow not transformed
or challenged at the core, I know
Miss Gleeson left her mark for good -
and that for good - upon my soul.
And I know too I had a crush on her.

Which of us two was masochist
and which the sadist, I'm not sure,
but for a while, and to our mutual chagrin,
we added violin -
a project that was shipwrecked when she heard
how I would practise it in bed.

A life-long Methodist of Primitive
persuasion, Miss Gleeson soon became
my sounding board for what was right
or wrong - a situation which exposed
her now and then to disappointment -
and me to episodes of darkest guilt.
(As when, for instance, she discovered,
pencilled in my "Definitions",
mine for a sextet.)

To Father Probity she seemed
The Antichrist. Her saintliness
cut little ice with him. She was a Methodist -
and that was that. He warned me
about fellowship with her. And so it was,
one Armistice Day Celebration
as he officiated at the War Memorial,
that she arrived with friends.
He gathered up his soutane and strode off,
muttering about dissenters in our midst..

Of her true worth I only got to know
on hearing that she'd died. And I was mortified.