March 29.22: Coping, but barely

\The 88th day

of a calendar year

is a hooray for the piano,

proud modern clavier.

Eighty-eight keys

to knot up our fingers,

uncountable hours

that put us through wringers.

Lessons and practice

dulling many a day,

but what a delight

to just sit down and play.

From Czerny to Joplin

is an arduous travel

and can make your resolve

and your neurons unravel,

but the family and friends

who won’t whimper or squawk

will help you endure —

they’ll have your Bach!

The time that it takes

to learn the technique

makes thousands of hours

dismal and bleak,

but just when you think

it’s too much to withstand

the mystery of music

flows out of your hand.

Eventually it comes,

a soul satisfaction,

after dragging delay of

gratification.

So whether some Gershwin

or Schubertian lieder,

may a piano today

accompany you, dear reader!

 

 

As some of you know from my blog, I lived through many, many years of piano lessons. I hated my lessons and I hated practicing, but, boy, did I love to play. My piano was my upper and my downer and my go-to for the stress du jour.

As I understood it, my piano teacher was, pedagogically speaking, a descendant of Liszt. This did not work well for me because, as everyone knows, Liszt had three hands. The expectations were hardly realistic for those of us with a mere two.

Nonetheless, like others, I persisted. Persistence and piano go together. Today I salute the teachers of both. Happy Piano Day, dear reader! And thanks to my friends Donna and Bill who tuned me into it!

 

 

March 26.22: Coping, but barely

You think you’re funny, don’t you,

oh, gods of endless snows?

Your humor leaves me cold (haha)

with frostbite on my nose.

Of this white stuff

I’ve had enough,

Begone! And go away!

It’s time for spring —

quit dawdling!

But come back on Christmas Day.

 

 

Yes, dear reader, on this late March morning,

it’s a white, white world out my window.

Part of me says it’s pretty.

The rest of me has a different opinion.

 

More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg.

 

March 22.22: Coping, but barely

Twilight curtains parted

and in grand purple theater

arose a ponderous butterscotch moon.

“Catch me if you can!”

it stage-whispered to my camera,

which sighed in my hands,

and tried, oh, so many times,

noble machine,

but in the end could only stand with me,

groundlings both,

in awed suspension of disbelief.

You may ask, dear reader, if there is anything

that doesn’t remind me of dessert.

I’ve asked that too.

March 18.22: Coping, but barely

A tourist stopped in Mallardville,

to see what might be there,

sidled up to locals

in competing savoir faire.

The Monsieurs sized each other up

in manly bivouac

while Madame Mallard plainly

didn’t seem to give a quack.

 

March 13.22: Coping, but barely

A robin skims the frosty grass,

stopping, starting, stopping;

the housefinch goes a-nesting,

pecking, pulling, hopping.

The chickadee, bright eye on me,

zigzags in spritely play;

the sun, at rise and setting,

is chirped along its way.

As winter’s bony grip

reluctantly lets go,

songbirds return a-twitter

in growing crescendo.

Far away in birddom

the elders meet en masse,

solemn, introspective,

with all due gravitas.

Somber-visaged sages,

exchanging thought and word,

they ponder and deliberate

what it means to be a bird.

The enigma of horizon,

the mystery of skies

inform their academia

as they Socratize.

Music quite eludes them

but they don’t think it wrong

that others ponder being

in transiency of song.

More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg.

And, of course, to the pelicans.

March 4.22: Coping, but barely

In fear of growing numb,

I plant my mute despair

in shades of blue and yellow

in still late winter air.

It’s just a little corner,

a nearly hidden space,

but wordless grief and anger

have a rightful place.

 

Saluting the immeasurable courage of the people of Ukraine.