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I never learned to play

.

I never learned to play, but my fiancé's brother did

his hands flexing across the keys in a blur

playing my mother’s piano at my parents’ house

while I laid on the ground, soaking it in

content to let him pick

what he would play at our wedding

before the words, around the words, after the words

all without words.

.

I never learned to play, but my oldest daughter did

strumming a black guitar for years on end

playing “Man on Fire” for her dad’s birthday gift

my middle daughter singing the chorus.

.

I never learned to play, but my middle daughter tried

tucking the violin under her chin, finding little tunes

among the plucks and squeaks of strings

while I lay on the couch, drinking it in.

.

I never learned to play, but my son taught himself

headphones plugged into a shy keyboard

learning the notes from a man on YouTube.

For a gift, I ask him to play for me, and “Spring”

by Vivaldi poured out like an upended cask

of molten gold, spilling and spreading until

the whole floor gleamed, our skin now covered

in a thin sheet of gold: a statue of a woman sitting

listening to her son play.

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This is beautiful, Margaret! As I read, I kept getting an image of you (well, some woman, anyway) floating above a sheet music earth, cheerfully bumping into quarter notes and treble cleffs as she soars.

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Oh, wow! That’s a poem in itself, Lisa!

My oldest son (the one who taught himself to play piano) had an assignment for an art class to paint from a photograph, and then add his own spin. He copied a picture of a piano and added rainbows pouring out of the top. That image came back to me when I was writing this—I love that he sees piano music that way.

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That’s so beautiful! Thats actually similar to how the image started for me, except a ribbon of sheet music poured from the piano and wrapped into a whole world.

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"all without words"

Sometimes words just get in the way.

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This is sweet and splendid, Margaret. I like the repetitive use of the first line, "I never learned to play." This brilliantly frames the words that follow, but also invokes the beauty and role of the listener, the receiver of the gracious miracle of music. What a magical poem you have crafted!

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Thank you so much, Larry! At first I was disappointed that I didn’t have a musical experience to offer for this prompt (I love music, but it does not make sense to me when I try to play it), and then it got me thinking about all the times when someone else playing meant so much to me.

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That is a brilliant and creative perspective, Margaret!

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Goodness, it has been a busy few works days since reading Lisa's poem and prompt, but the fog of work just lifted!

Meadow Hawk

Drum notes rolling through the trees,

the thump of plastic and wood,

synthetic skins and mysterious shakers,

sounds sent across the forest,

the hills, the oceans

and the universe.

These beats from me to you

here to there

a thread of possible connection

creeping in when least expected.

Hawk circling quiet meadows,

green laced fields, autumns entry

adding an ancient voice

to the stream of sacred harmony

that sings to every corner,

every village,

every heart,

Opening again and again

to the rhythm of love.

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I felt so encircled by sound while reading your lovely poem, Larry. Like Keith, I was particularly struck by the lines "a thread of possible connection / creeping in when least expected." So beautiful!

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"A thread of possible connection/creeping in when least expected." Gorgeous lines, Larry. And the "stream of sacred harmony/opening again and again to the rhythm of love." Wow, I can feel that in my body when I open my ears and my heart to the soundscape that nature provides. In fact, the crickets and cicadas are pulsating with it right now outside my window, healing the day's wounds.

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Thank you Keith! I resonate with your vivid description of the music of nature. And live that cicada and cricket symphony!

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Sep 6·edited Sep 7Liked by Lisa Jensen

This is so, so lovely, Lisa!! My instrument was the violin. I would sleep holding it if I weren't afraid of smashing it, it is my oldest, most way back friend and first love. I even bought it a friend and then I was jealous. Lol. I've played, pecked really, the piano and organ, though I CAN play a xylophone. I wish I could play the drums.

Sitting outdoors has that same feeling, where I hear the silence under the harmony and music of Nature. It's one of my favorite "sounds" and feelings. I love the feeling of the possibility of sound because I can hear it underneath the sound, but I'm glad the sound still exists because it's less lonely, you know? Thank you for such a wonderful post and share!! A lone tear just rolled down my cheek. XO

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I wanted to read your comment over and over as if it were a poem, Danielle! There's so much beauty in here - your violin, you "oldest, most way back friend and first love" and also everything you said about sound. I think sometimes of the silence beneath the sound, but the notion of "the possibility of sound" beneath the sound really strikes me. Thank you for this!

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Thank you! As it happens, synchronistically, I just wrote very recently about my violin.

I love the "layers" of Nature's music over the top of silence that is underneath the sounds. Even the silence underneath Nature's music is a part of the music. It is all connected. It's like Nature taking a deep breath in before singing her song. XO

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This is a beautiful comment, Danielle. Power to the violinists! As a music lover whose apptitude lags behind the love, but who manages to lead and do drum circles, I wager you can play the drums, hand drums, buffalo drums, and more!

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PS, I LOVE that you do drum circles! So powerful!! XO

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They are pretty much everywhere, and worth taking in!

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Larry, maybe not well, but I'm sure I could tap a beat at least. XO

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I have no doubt!

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Very nice, thank you.

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Sep 5Liked by Lisa Jensen

Grab karen's flute. A french horn.

Some drumsticks.

Chuck's trombone. That old stringless zither in the corner.

Any axe but your own axe.

quickly now.

confidently.

& NO giggling.

There's a sub in band class today.

earschplittenloudenboomer time.

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🤣🤣🤣 Yes!!!

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Sweet song, Chuck--God bless the subs!

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Oh that’s lovely. You have a gift for these quiet moments of connection with the life around you.

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Thank you so much! I spend a lot of time hermiting and introverting.

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Sep 4Liked by Lisa Jensen

Yes! I know exactly

what you mean by that

aliveness, and

sometimes it comes

at its strongest

in moments of silence.

'Crackling' is the perfect word

for it, that electric energy

beyond science, that divine

presence of the highest

awareness, when

anything is possible

and this moment

feels pregnant,

about to burst

into song or words

or simply the love

we're always moving towards.

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Pregnant is another perfect word for that feeling/space!

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Are you creating order out of disorder?

Are you composing in major or minor,

Music of joy or sorrow?

Maybe you are many colors of sounds

A swirl of each as you walk daily

With the muse of Coltrane.

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The fact that this ended on “Coltrane” delights me!

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Somehow I thought it might.

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Sep 4Liked by Lisa Jensen

Sheets of sound.

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Truly a love supreme, Jim!

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I could play all day

Keys black and white and lilting

The heaviness lifts

I now know that I used piano as a primary regulating tool for calming my nervous system when I was a kid. I’d sit and play for hours - familiar tunes and repetitive, meditative songs from my heart. I don’t play nearly enough these days, but often even just sitting at the bench for a moment brings a familiar sense of calm.

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"The heaviness lifts" - yes! Playing piano and guitar both feel this way for me, too. Even though my skills are mediocre at best! And like you say, sometimes just that first action of sitting at the bench or pulling the guitar down from the wall (I can imagine the exact sound it makes when i do) is enough to shift my energy.

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“If you feel their smoothness like a song” 💞

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"Their white plains and black ridges" - love this topographical imagery of the piano. Like so many of your prompts, this one sent me inside to do some more unpacking of old pain I've been lugging around. It's a good kind of ache.

***

Like everything, anything else

in my history, my musical proclivity

(which is to say my lack thereof)

took its cues stoically,

watching carefully, quietly

my furtive attempts

to fit into the binary.

Every choice seeking

to find the right slot

so I wouldn’t be caught

in the wrong pigeonhole.

Viewed through that context

and not back-there-then pretext,

it makes a world of sense

that what I most remember

about my Snoopy bass drum

was not so much playing it,

but its sponge-headed mallet,

so convincingly phallic

when stuffed into my size 6x underoos.

And that my child mind would choose

to try learning clarinet,

the androgynous midpoint

between feminine flute

and masculine trumpet,

but then decide the safest bet

was to not to play at all.

Because quitting is winning or

at least not losing

when you’re playing

secret hide-and-seek and/or

Russian roulette.

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This poem broke my heart - and that's a good thing. I'm having a hard time putting words to the feelings it evoked for me - sadness for your sweet child self, wonder at children's ingenuity, and also just a sense of being stopped in my tracks by how much everything in our lives is shaped by our sense of who we are and the messages we absorb about who we're supposed to be. Thank you for this thought-provoking and vulnerable poem, Keith.

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Keith, this is heartbreakingly berauitful. I like how you use music and various instruments to relate to your own experience and the ways that we suppress and repress, not to mention oppress, others from being the creative wonders that they truly are. I can relate to how even the choice of instruments to play reflect societal norms around gender and gender roles, depriving the universe of so many creative forces and beautiful music. I think of theat quote from Thorera aboiut diferenty drummers which goes "when someone cannot keep pace ith their companions, perhaps it is because they hear a different drummer. Let them go to the music which they hear, however measured or far away. That quote on a poster in 11th grade English was a redemptive island for me, as was the against the grain teacher who put it there. Keep moving toward your music, we need it!

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You are music, Lisa! I had forgotten about that traumatic 3rd grade experience of mandatory recorder lessons until your prompt! I feel deep compassion for our teacher whose name I have forgotten. I wish I could tell them "Thank you..."

Our sons had music in elementary school, a delicious combination of joy, excitement, trauma, disdain, contempt and wonder. Their teacher was a man who seemed to at one time have loved his job, but who had heard way too many renditions of "Hot Cross Buns" played out of tune and key to ever summon that joy again. Fortunately, we kept playing music at the house and they both love and play music, better than their parents!

Lisa, this lovely song by Rising Appalaciha was playing while I read your prompt. It seemed perfectly appropriate!

Wider Circles by Rising Appalachia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QEzGVR7Lo8

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“A man who seemed to at one time have loved his job, but who had heard way too many renditions of "Hot Cross Buns" 😂 - thank you for making me laugh, Larry! I’m out and about with no headphones right now but look forward to coming back to the song you shared.

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Thank you Lisa! And maybe you’ll find an exciting version of “Hot Cross Buns”. 😁

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I never got around to pulling out my guitar -- but I sang a bunch while walking through my last few days. That, plus a conversation with my friend about playing in the symphony, led to this:

.

What she misses is the hivecenter of sound:

Feeding the many-hearted eddy,

letting it take her before it

brings down the house.

.

I don't know that exact feeling,

never having played that big,

but I have been shot through

by the resonant lovechild

.

of your voice and mine.

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I love this Rebekah! It flows like a song, seems to match the wonderful rhythm of your heart and spirit! And, I would love to hear your voice and guitar again! Perhaps this poem is seed for a song! 🎵

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