Sarah Maguire
My Father’s Piano
Carved from the seasoned hearts of rosewood —
the fine grain veined black
through the sheen of maroon —
my father’s piano
was the centre of home;
the sounding-board of thought and feeling
ignited by
the heartbeat, heartbeat, heartbeat
threading through the scales
of pitch in time.
Look at it unpacked —
a junction box of forged connections,
the waves of felts
in red and green and deep sky blue,
the interleaved shanks,
the hammers and dampers, stacked and packed in
as close as a skeleton,
stitched through with steel —
the plumblines of tension —
the strings spun around
their curved constellation of chromium pins
scattered on a sky
gilded Krugerrand gold.
Always I was staggered
by the deep bass darkness
catching at my heart, resounding around
my lungs and bones,
by the tinsel glissando
housed in high ivories
at the edge of sound —
the hammers’ attack on the strings forging joy,
then tempering tenderness.
This is the work of love —
the testing of harmonies
through the risk
of dissonance, trying again as the hands fall apart,
taking on silence
when the afternoon fades —
practice and grace,
as light ebbs away before tea.
Page(s) 36-37
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