[Critique Group 2] poetry submission for Feb. 25 critique session

[Alice Massa]

*Aunt Lydia’s Player Piano*

Family-history poem by Alice Jane-Marie Massa

For reasons lost on our Family tree,

my maternal grandfather, the baker

and the one who played in the Clinton Marching Band

with a Sousa-type uniform

(part of which my sister still has at her Colorado home),

bought for one of my mother’s older sisters

an upright, player piano of dark wood.

Aunt Lydia--the tallest of the siblings,

the one with the beautiful hair,

the one who left our small Hoosier town

to live the rest of her long life

on a flat Illinois farm--

played the piano when she was young.

However, just like I never heard my grandfather play his unusual brass 
instrument,

I never heard my Aunt Lydia play the piano

which stood melodiously against the east wall of the farm’s dining room.

Her older daughter, Sandra, in purple and gray uniform,

played the xylophone

in the Scotland High School Marching Band

and played the piano a little.

When I visited the farm,

I, of course, liked to play the piano

and also listen to the music it could bring forth

without the touch of human hands on the ivory keys.

I never coveted this precious piano

because I had my own Gulbransen;

but, perhaps, I should have.

Decades later,

after the girls (my cousins) had married and left the farm,

after Aunt Lydia no longer had chickens

whose eggs she had gathered daily for decades in her upturned apron--

her son who to this day still works the farm,

who still drives a Corvette, computerized combine, and snowmobile--

for reasons unbeknownst to my mother and me and all--

chopped up the out-of-tune,

no-longer working player piano

and burned it.

Did he realize he was burning an antique,

a family treasure,

a gift from our grandfather,

the musical memories of our ancestors,

something precious to my mother and me?

The piano was not just theirs:

it certainly was not his.

Why did he not ask other family members

if we would want the family heirloom?

Why didn’t someone ask?

Yes, I would have used my saved money

to have the piano moved,

to have the piano restored,

to have the piano tuned.

No matter how the piano sounded to him,

I will tell you that that player piano

was always in tune with my heartstrings.

Seemingly so alone and lonely

on that rich, flat farmland,

my Aunt Lydia,

yes, my Aunt Lydia--

did she shed a tear

when she learned what her son had done--

when her son destroyed forever

the piano my grandfather had given her?

I never asked her

because she was so dear to me.

Now, yes, now,

I wish I had a magical musical power

to change the end of this family story.

Decrescendo.Low C.

Number of words:468

Written on February 15, 2021; revised on February 16, 2021

For critique session of Group 2:February 25, 2021, Thursday


alicejmassa at gmail.com

Stay warm and well!



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