Teaching A Seven-Year-Old To Play Guitar Poem by Max Reif

This week he's hiding
under a blanket
when I come.

I ask him, 'Do you want
to have your lesson? '
He tells me 'Yes', and so
we go into the next room,
to his music stand, and start.

I watch his little fingers
make the chords,
trying to gain a hand-hold
over chaos.

His memory's impressive,
though he sometimes
muffles every string
and has no sense
of when to strum.

I think of what it is
I want to teach him,
the things that seem
so simple, now, for me.

These concepts,
time and rhythm,
this finesse of fingers
don't come naturally.

They must be dredged
out of a dark sea
with a net of patience.

Sometimes he walks away
before the lesson's done,
telling me he's tired,

and I leave feeling our effort's dead.
Next week, perhaps, his mom will say,
'We're going to take a break...'

I struggle through despair
those few moments weekly
I can spare for preparation,
drawing rhythm charts:

two long lines
mark off a measure,
a short line for every strum,
chords and lyrics penciled in.

This week, it works!
Clapping out the 4/4,
then the 3/4 time,
I finally hear the songs
he's worked so long on.

He doesn't, but he will.
Life has come from the dead
impasse. The air in my lungs
is vast and fresh now,
like the sky that greets me
when I get outside.

I feel as though I've tutored Alexander
for his conquest of the world.