brace,
tremble, your weight
is breaking
him
LIFT
I pay him
brace,
tremble, your weight
is breaking
don’t want
to shift
don’t want
to move you
I am weak
LIFT
what choice?
what choice?
leave you?
I
practiced and dreamed
counting time
with you, singing
nothing but blue skies from now on
grandma’s and
great auntie’s piano
Mum calling
to me – STOP STRUMMING
STOP! – from her kitchen
my teacher had
no faith in me
I walked to
her house before school
she decided
what not to teach
I waited on
her verandah
morning light
through blind slats
my hands shook
over the keys
quavered in
front of Assembly so
the hymn
faltered, a mistake and more mistakes
you the heavy
witness
as I played
the clear phrases back to you
at home
how to learn
to continue
nothing but blue skies from now on
alone, a
note strikes
piano blanketed
in the truck
your note sings back to me
calling
your weight
LIFT
This is so moving... Sarah (sorry) and I think perfect. You traverse time, loss and memory delicately and scatter light with heavy keys in a really musical way - I found myself singing/humming 'blue skies' more than once. Your piece strikes empathy and across a great range of emotion in a short two arms length, tinkling and also carring a heavy bass. It even strums. It's a wow from me (:
ReplyDeleteI like the contrasts you put into the poem, between the description and the spoken text, the way one disrupts the other, like syncopation. The piano has such a weighty significance. I recently sold my mother's piano - she'd willed it to me, I couldn't accommodate it, but it went to the home of enthusiasts.
ReplyDeletethat's sad Anna
ReplyDeleteevery home should have one
(at least one)
so when there's an outage you know where to sit
a clear day on the highway would be good too ...
ReplyDeletewe come from the same afternoon
Thank you for your reading and observations. Family heirlooms invested with so many meanings and stories are heartbreaking to give up. For me it is a lot to do with grandparents I never knew and wish I had known. The complexity of it overwhelms me. I couldn't give up the piano. But it is also madness to accept it in practical terms. Big. Very very heavy. I felt more comfortable putting the song line in, 'blue skies', having seen how Kristen de Kline references lyrics in her poems. Thanks for the feedback about the contrasts, and the music especially.
ReplyDelete