What's your cancer story?

I met a man called Sol recently sitting outside a café on a brilliant Auckland summers day. He overheard the conversation I was having with my friend, I could sense him listening as we talked about cancer. We learned cancer has impacted Sol by taking many of his friends. He told us of men in his community who are in various stages of dying - a sobering thought as we sipped on our flat whites.

Sol kindly agreed to share poems he has written over the years for loved ones who have died from cancer.

Sol Petersen is a movement and rehabilitation specialist, psychotherapist and a Tai Chi teacher who lives on the side of a beautiful mountain in the Coromandel ranges. He Is also a musician, author and poet. Says Sol, 'I’ve lost way too many close friends to cancer and written far too many poems about friends who I can only meet in my heart now.'

Carrie Tuke was an amazing UK based yoga teacher, musician,

structural Integration practitioner and counsellor. In the 1990s I was training practitioners in a method called Structural Integration in New Zealand Europe and the British Isles. Carrie trained with me and became a close friend and colleague. We loved teaching together particularly sharing yoga and tai chi retreats. Carrie was a saxophone player who loved the jazz clubs in London. I have a super fun memory of her and I and a NZ trombone player jamming together one evening in the south of France that I always cherish. A beautiful soul, she returned to the light in at age 53. Her husband Mark lives in NZ and is one of my close friends. Pictured: Sol & Carrie

Another Kind of Music

You have to move to that kind of music.

Those old boys of the Buena Vista Social Club touched me with their immortality.

Once I thought that would be our story.

The sun sets on my porch through a glass of wine.

The guitar slides into tune.

You rock back and forth

and the honey sounds of your golden saxophone wrap around my easy laughter.

Clickety clack.

I jiggle back and forth on the seat.

The Piccadilly tube rockets through the underworld.

Too soon,

I will leave this train.

I will sit by your bed in the Royal Marsden Hospital,

fondling the soft toy bear.

We won’t need to speak.

We will share another kind of music.

London, June 2014

Matthew Brown was a brilliant composer, pianist, teacher and musical director. He lived and worked most of his life in NZ. I knew Matthew as a close friend from the 1970’s and he played piano on four albums i recorded, so we shared a lot of musical time. In the 1980’s he found testicular cancer. Surgery and chemo seemed to take it away and he lived a full life for over 20 years until a tumour was discovered in his spine when he was in Sydney. This poem was written shortly before he passed, after two trips to spend time with him. His wife, children and many friends still miss him as I do.

Pictured Matthew, Shena (Matthew’s wife), Sol and Kevin after a recording session.

The Master of the Air Piano Out the hospice window, the evening sky is darkening blood red, enormous bats flap, swarm around the Sacred Heart church steeple. The rain hasn’t stopped these three days. Tears I can’t yet cry. My tired eyes shift across the room to this new version of my friend.

This man, old too young, who drifts back and forth from the world we share to strange ones I can’t follow him to. I gently massage the withered muscles of his legs, feeling little more than the bones. His thighs are like your upper arms, his wife says. Stealing the thought out of my head, words I was careful not to let slip out. His angel looks to me, caresses his other leg, Even here, still cheerful, She’s a bloody miracle. He smiles softly, enjoying our touch, eyelids fluttering like moths over his closed eyes Lying flat on his hydraulic bed, A large baby bird fallen softly onto his back, Lips and facial muscles move erratically, as if to speak. Suddenly, his right arm darts up into space, perhaps to turn the page on the music stand in his otherworld where he conducts and plays his piano part. Then like little animals, his hands start crawling and racing nervously all around his body, touching , scratching, franticly searching. More than once, with a slap from nowhere, he has surprised her, knocked her on the head, wakened her from deep sleep on the bed beside him, as he speaks to his invisible friends. 'Oh, There he is. John McCassey just walked into the room.’ He raises his fingers to his lips, sipping a cup of otherworld tea. Its the Ketamine and morphine that's done this to him. Vets use it to tranquillise horses, Others for a trip sideways, whatever that means. It takes him away from here, from her, from me, from himself, and most importantly from the pain. The pain, yes the new pain that arrived when the tumor grew and smashed through the second lumbar vertebra. First it was strange sensations, a loss of balance, then everything down there went on holiday, both legs, and all control of the bottom end. I’ve felt so suicidal more than a few times, he whispered to me, out of her earshot, just after I arrived. He knew how hard it is for her to hear him speak those words. Enough of all that, he says ‘let’s play one of your old songs.’

I tune up my guitar Just as I am ready to start, The Musical Director, eyes closed, whispers hoarsely, through a dry throat to the rest of the band in his otherworld. ‘Take it from the top boys,’ Startled, I quickly kick into the first riff. He’s right there, Transported, both hands in the air, feeling the space, the shape of the sound. Each hand softly held, keeping time. A secret smile and he nods right, points a bony finger. The drummer and bass player come in. We’re in the groove, carried by the music. His head joyfully jogs, bouncing from side to side, arms in mid air, hands resting softly on the keyboard, waiting for his solo, that’s just coming up. And he’s launched, weaving his magic, fingers dancing across the keys, feeling the sound within the sound, and with a smile, slipping in an off beat or a pause that almost makes you fall off your chair. . This man, who can make a piano sing like wading sea birds in shallow water, or thunder crashing off an angry mountain, Then lures you along with melodies so sweet they startle you with their sadness. Then, as suddenly as an evening breeze, the song is fading out. The winged hands flutter down onto the sheets. The creative director smiles a satisfied smile, opens his eyes, just a little. looks around,

‘That was great guys, thanks.’ His eyes fall shut and his breath deepened softly. I put my guitar back in its case, slipping out of the room, then turn to look back. The angel has lain down beside him, wrapped her wings lovingly around this frail man, the master of the air piano, asleep on his single bed.

Sydney and Mana, NZ February 2010