On further review, a couple of the poems in the old Divinations series turned out to be publishable as they were… This one speaks to my musical vocation, which bloomed a little late – but at least it has…
Ivory Sunrise
Old worn wooden shell
Dingy clapboard cage
with radiant ivory egg
Piano in the house
Upright proud, beckons still
begging no one
Calmly anticipates – nothing
Hinged bench opens to discover
piles of printed music
Books and booklets –
songs, anthologies
Boy exhumes a song page
Assumes the position
What are all these dots?
Chooses some keys
What are all these tones?
His mother could play
but never did
nor encouraged him
Later claimed the Fear of Pushing
Never breathed a word
Pianissimo so silent
sits unplayed
It’s a boy’s life
As a dying sun fades
so dimly yellows that page of music
Never moving, never played
As the house ages badly
– balding shingles
– windows blurring
– beams creaking
Piano, ever silent ever proud
stands resolute without age
Piano in my home
My children in this house
Ancient groaning structure
on its last knees
Piano in silence crying rescue
Smooth finish tickles their touch
Daughter, firstborn
delights in a certain note repeated
Deep yellowed sheet music
crumples to flakes
Son, unborn musician
singer in the dark
Gleeful palms an unknown chord
Ferocious playful exuberance
Over and over he will play!
Windows blasted from their frames
glitter darkly in the dead grass
My children laughing, I join them
and we bash out our exultation
Piano singing shouting screaming
its joy its release as well
Self-discovery, self-expression is our forte
This house of silent chaos
can stand no more
Crashes down around us
Topples to earth
impotent to prevent any more
Hopeless, unable to harm us
It is a dead thing
best given proper burial
Even this shell collapsing
can’t drown our ecstatics
Dust of old silent shrouds
tarnishes nothing here now
Three children one child
Four voices one voice
All set free turned loose
upon suspicious persons
unsuspecting culture
and all-knowing Creation
(9/17/94)