Thursday, January 12, 2012

Piano

When she sat me down at the piano after she'd set the timer on the oven to 30 minutes, she pointed at the keys and said, "You'll have to learn the names of each of these keys."  Then she got up, and I looked down as my 10 year old shoulders slumped under the impossible request, placed a single finger on middle C without knowing what to call it yet and pressed down:  I'll call you Bird that Carved the Cliff with Wings of Water.  The one beside it:  Sister who brought the moon down in a mason jar, drank it full and ran away to a big city until your parents found you and brought you back.

And when I played three of them together, they were called The Sadness I Couldn't Name Until I Heard the Sound of It Lifted From the Wood.

2 comments:

  1. Your ten-year-old self was incredibly thoughtful, insightful, wise. That explains Nora. :)

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