Piano player

She couldn’t read a note

of music but learned to play

the old upright by ear,

memorizing what she needed

to know, songs and mostly hymns,

and knew them so well that

she played for the church for years,

and no one ever guessed

she couldn’t read a note,

a single note.

Photograph by Sabine Sauermaul via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Romance for Flute and Piano

Emerging from soundlessness,
quiet pools, small eddies,
tiny swirls of motion
dance, slow, stand.
A single note of perfection
holds for an extended moment,
a shining, crystallized rivulet
of sound, and then
the music flows
again into silence.

Last week, my wife and I attended a program at The Sheldon Concert Hall in St. Louis called “French Impressions,” a group of selections by Jacques Ibert, Claude Debussy, Lili Boulanger, Camile Saint-Saens and Carlos Salzedo. Only four instruments were played – flute, harp, viola and piano. The Sheldon is an old building, well maintained, with one of the most acoustically perfect auditoriums in the country. Musicians of all kinds love performing there because the sound is wonderful. (There’s also an art gallery connected to the theatre, with the paintings of Max Lazarus currently the main exhibit.)

The selection played before the intermission was "Romance for Flute and Piano" by Saint-Saens. The musicians were Mark Sparks on flute and Peter Henderson on piano. It was stunning. When the lights came up for intermission, I sat there, staring at the stage, and then scribbled the poem above on the back of a program insert.

You can hear the music by clicking on the link below (it's a university recital, not the one at the Sheldon).



This poem is submitted for One Shot Wednesday, hosted by One Stop Poetry. To see other poems, please visit the site. The links will be live at 4 p.m. Central time today.