Threnody for a Queen in Four Parts – a short Opera
by Christine Coates
Queen Lear
It’s the last year of the queen, early summer,
sarcophagus dream.
everything is bursting with life. She has her first
She’s in a dark, suffocating space. Perhaps she is dead.
Shah Mat. From outside muffled sounds.
How to stop herself from drowning.
Now a scraping sound, stone grating, heavy stone
moving across heavy stone. A narrow sluice of light.
Below her are centuries of women
a mirror
her future
her past
her ghost.
The Girl
Who is she – this one just like me,
another me. A mother.
A little mother, a mother before her time.
It’s her birthday – time of Noël, birth of a god, before
a sacrifice?
the year dies. Is she an offering,
She brings forth a cub, the cub
for the king. She is mother now,
mother next to the mother.
She leaves the cub in the care
of the old mother, the mother
clawing the Umsinsi tree.
She is searching, searching for her time.
She searches in the sands but
her father’s wind has come and blown away the traces.
Who are these creatures gliding
creatures of beauty.
across the desert? Creatures of strength,
Tall, purposeful sisters, they glide, they’re wise.
She stands before them, bows.
One is baked clay, the other is bronze, the third stone.
A Game of Chess
Elephants
Horses
Chariots
Foot soldiers
a parade, a Persian chessboard.
Shah Mat, the mourners murmur. Shah Mat.
Shah Mat. The king is dead.
There’s no word for queen,
the game only ends when the king dies.
She’s in the dark, inside a sarcophagus stone cold.
Through a crack a shard of light. It’s a funeral
procession. The litter is held high
six men in scarlet jackets
six women in veils of soft pink gossamer
They’re singing, low and deep. A dirge.
“We carry her across the sands,” low and deep the men in scarlet mumble. Shah Mat, the mourners murmur. Shah Mat.
It’s the grief of strangers.
Now a praise singer – an imbongi in Xhosa garb
leads minstrels with fiddles and flutes,
a little dog dances to see such fun,
twirls, chases its tail.
“The house is empty,” the gossamers wail. Shah Mat. “We carry her across the sands,” the red soldiers sing. Shah Mat. There is no word for queen.
Only a king can end the game.
The Collapsed Mother
“She’s gone. Gone while I was sleeping.” It’s her boy, her Favour. He searches, searches.
“She shall not return,” says the man in the pointed hat.
I left her here sleeping, peaceful on the couch.
“She shall not return.”
He seeks her in every mountain shadow, seeks
beneath the rain, among the words of the bearded men, where
her voice was an equal.
“She’s gone, gone while I was sleeping.”
The view from this end, her end –
her son is pulling on a rope, pulling through the sands,
an eagle cast in cement.
Does he have to kill the mother to usurp
the father? He’s rocking the kingdom’s boat.
Was it all so fucking oedipal?
She makes motley notes; I tried my best but like Venus I am broken. “Dress your family in corduroy and dreams,” the women wail.
Shah mat, shah mat. The game only ends
when the king is dead.
Now she’s awake but not quite – all her children are there, her other son weeps quietly.
Will they tell her they love her? Do they?
Her daughter is eyeing the kingdom.