At The Piano* Poem by RIC BASTASA

Wanting to cleave clearly in the mind the wooden chopping boards of the house into piano keys,
and the long tables of the dining room into some imagined concert:
Do you hear it?
Yes?
Do you not since then not realize this grand scale?
The poor boy is playing a sonata in his head, yes?
Yes.
Now. (Pushed into agreement as if pushed by birth into an empty room without choice and flowers for wallpaper and a mirror kept blind dark in a drawer)
There was a piano, once, in my head.
And a stage.
And the world surprised by what had been found.
Difficult piece: the left hand flying over the right and the air-pedal stepped through and clean to sustain.
And all the world standing behind kitchen counters and the dinner plates waiting for the imagined overture to complete its applause:
If only there was no need to explain.
If only the real thing was as clear and as audible as once the beautiful music.

* Brown beaver in a stream and the grass green
Small girl on a swing and a bird wing
And because he thinks it’s meant to be spring,
he colors the clear edges
of all living things in his piano book-
Where the paw touches sharp the blades
of the green patch
and the bare arm of the blonde girl arcs
her slender reach to the sun.
And old Brahms who lifts his hand in a wave,
even if this is meant to be a slow waltz he’s playing,
and a packed piano concert hall he’s set in where a bright blue blazer’s not the right suit for this true master to wear.
This genuine thing:
Every day before the sun rose,
I dreamt the world already in color.
Ivy on the old wall greener by far
than any I had seen the lush trees
bending some friends hiding behind jars,
sliding doors snuck into the empty cabinets of the garage wanting to be found and: everyone loved.
Wanting to tell the truth, to play it.
Song remembered from somewhere else
and someone else’s mistake:
the bored boy on the waiting couch
knows the girl now playing the piano has no applause in sight. The day could be awash with light!
what colors blind him with the waiting bird on the wing wrap his hands with a song small girl’s swing fill his eyes while he’s playing a fast loud trick of a trill in his head

in what was said to be “with feeling” terrible terrible thing

* All encompassing terror of the grand design
I wanted the great concertos,
the Bach arias.
I wanted: Praise be to God who fashions with his own hands the universe and all of creation out of a deep love for everything without choice.
Without being dramatic.
I wanted the long pause.
I wanted the audience stunned to tears because:
this we have not heard before in the streets this song this beautifully done.
It moves.
It brings us to the edge of our sight.
I am not the light.
I was not even part of its terms of recovery or perfection.
Joy without end without just reward.
Who has not, faced with a sin, said:
I want to be good?
For he hears even our thoughts.
I wanted that silence.
I wanted the huge applause after the silence.



*by L.L.Ypil