Sometimes
the sudden crescendo of luck.
The boy says, please
will you teach me
to play piano and there
is nothing to do except
say yes. And inexplicably,
where once was fidget
and fiddle and twitch
and squirm there is
sufficient curiosity for sitting
very, very still and learning
the curve of the fingers just so,
first against the silent bench and then
against the keys themselves,
and he names the notes as he plays them,
again and again and again; again;
e, d, c, d, e, e, e. The rising thrill
as it wakes in him, a rush
of understanding, the singing language
of the staves. Now the dark blots
are song in his fingers, melody
on his breath. There is never time
enough. But sometimes,
oh, the music falls out despite. Quarter
notes doing cartwheels
as if they’ve escaped
the pleats of time, danced
right off the signature and
played their way right
into the astonished heart.
Posts Tagged ‘music’
Right After Dinner, Finn Asks
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged music, parenting, piano lesson, poem, poetry on February 17, 2014| 1 Comment »
Liederkreis, Opus 24
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Liederkreis, music, piano, poem, poetry, Schumann, singing, song on September 17, 2013| 1 Comment »
Cosi e’, se vi pare
(That’s the way it is, if it seems that way to you)
—Italian saying
Under my fingers,
the chords are familiar,
allegretto, in 2/4 time.
I lean into the ritardandos,
swelling the passing tensions,
failing to remember to exhale.
The lyrics, perhaps because
they are in German,
are beautiful. I can forget
that they speak of sleepless
nights and helplessness,
and dreams that languish
unfulfilled. My voice drifts
into the rafters. What
do I know of dreams?
There is so much I do not know.
Even this life I call my own.
What do I know of it?
Who taught them to sing,
the birds in autumn?
Who taught them to dance,
the leaves? Tonight, I do not see them,
the shadows my voice moves through
as I follow the staffs in front of me.
Nor do I think of translation. Nor
do I think of who is listening,
nor of who is not. For now,
there is Schumann and Heine,
there is this voice that is borrowing me,
there is this song that says
it must be sung.
Dusting the Piano
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, memory, music, piano, poem, poetry on June 29, 2013| 1 Comment »
The best part, of course,
is dusting the keys, sliding
the damp rag
from top to bottom, from high
notes to low,
over the blacks and into
the valleys of the smooth
long whites, how
a showering of music then
fills the room.
I nearly wish there were
more work
to do. Sometimes I forget there
is joy to be found in just touching
a thing, though
I have touched it a thousand
thousand times
before. How the skin meets it
anew. Sometimes I forget that
I know what
a hand can do, oh the smooth
of it, oh
the slide, the skim, the skate of it,
oh the slipping,
the flutter, the long and longing
(remember?) glide.
Some Call it Noise
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged childhood, mothering, music, piano, poem, poetry, rhythm, sound on May 21, 2013| 5 Comments »
“Mom,” he says,
“I love this note.”
I sit beside my boy
on the bench
and I say, “It’s a D,
a low D.”
And he plays
the white key
again and again
and again and
again with animal
ferocity. “Can you find
another D?” I ask,
and he finds another,
to my delight, and another
and another and another.
Then he plays the Ds
with two hands—
one a bass and one
a thrumming, heavy beat.
Again, again,
again, again,
his body is a-thrill
with it. “I love this note,”
he says again,
his eyes electric,
wild with tone,
“Mom”, he says,
“will you write
this down?
Please mom,”
he begs, as he
hammers the Ds
with an almost
violent grace.
While he sleeps,
I draw the darksome notes
in his rhythmic trance
on two otherwise empty staves.
The notes are the Union
Pacific westbound;
and they are the boy,
his feet eager as he pounds
across the field;
and they are the railing
of hail in the orchard;
and they are the hands
of a boy who is banging
out his rampant joy, freed
from a language
dipped in lead,
God, he’s free,
he is pushing all of himself
into D; and they are
the boulders
tumbled by snowmelt,
thundering along
the full riverbed;
the sound of the heart
when it beats for no reason
except that it
was made to beat.
The Morning After Making Dinner with Rostropovich
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cello, haiku, music, poem, poetry, Rostropovich, tanka on July 1, 2012| 2 Comments »
soft thread of tune
beyond humming
still the attempt
*
though the musician
is long, long gone
strands of dark arpeggios
tucked
in my hair
*
because
he once played
that Bach prelude
I feel now so
beautiful
*
long after
the listening
still listening
*
almost like lips
bruised from a night of kissing
my ears this morning after
While Making Dinner with Rostropovich: Three Haiku and a Tanka
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cello, losing the self, loss, music, poem, Rostropovich on June 30, 2012| 2 Comments »
It is Bach
I tell the broccoli
knife keeps quarter beats
*
all my empty spaces
alive with cello and silence—
every loss
has made it possible
this breathtaking resonance
*
the music touches
me everywhere, everywhere
purple gladiolas
*
in the kitchen
I am being spun, whirling
the cello bows
While Listening to Herbie Hancock
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged absence, Herbie Hancock, music, poems, poetry, presence, union on April 19, 2012| 3 Comments »
the barrier of noumenon-phenomenon
transcended
the circle momentarily complete
—Lenore Kandel
Perhaps
we,
too,
are
more
empty
space
than
note,
our
bodies
like
this
minor
tune—
vast
expanses
of
what
isn’t
here
held
together
by
something
almost
beautiful
that
is.
Taking Note: haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged birds, haiku, happiness, music, poem, poetry, singing on February 22, 2012| 3 Comments »
What Happens When We Sing Together
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged chanting, losing the self, music, poems, poetry, singing on February 15, 2012| 5 Comments »
In a ring of song
I hear your silence
I breathe in your silence
in a ring of song
I lose my singular voice
and become
what is unwritten,
unwritable, endlessly sung—
in the ring of song
there is no note
not worth singing,
there is no tone that’s wrong
in the ring of song
in the ring of song
the song rises and falls
all around us, it rises
and falls inside of us
I breathe in and pull
into my lungs the song
where it mixes with the unborn song
still forming
on my tongue,
in the ring of song
I am no one and if
I am anyone at all
I am one being sung.
“Because Mom, He’s Still Making Music”
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, boys, music, tanka on November 11, 2011| 1 Comment »
When you are older
I wish you the same tug
you felt tonight—how when
we left the concert
you whimpered to go back