Discordant Melody Poem by Zachary Edmond Lockhart

Between sitting idle for years,
moving from one home to another;
strings have strayed, keys have stuck,
the music stand hangs by just one hinge.

But the body still sings,
its song yet dependent
on hands to touch it,
on some temporal refrain
to resonate within.

The greater the velocity of fingers striking keys,
the greater the force of hammers thumping strings,
the louder the harmonic oscillation
the stronger these two souls sing.

But so much depends on this frequency of touch-
A voice is felt at 1kHz
but with these 88 keys, like nerve endings
branching to 233 strings,
the pianoforte touches us with 4,186 Hz.

Sometimes, we pair perfectly
with pitches matching, intervals between
our touch and our temperament.

Sometimes, we are off,
our pitches differ
the intervals are unjust,
a dissonant chord rings out
where we strive to balance
actions and reactions,
harmonies and echoes.

But overtime we find coherence,
if only to sustain a discordant melody
that is all our own.