[Critique Group 2] Leonard's belated commnets on Alice's Feb piece

[tuchyner5 at aol.com]

This is an emotional piece . 



It gives the background of the piano to involvethe reader’s emotions. 



It does a good job of  gaining the readers sympathy  for the piano’s destruction  



and the condemnation of the son who perpetuatedthe piano’s diestruction. 



In other words I was fully involved in thepiece.  



I felt like strangling the offender.  



I like the way you  took all the characters and  told their story with , 



“”M not sure I have the correct descriptors, 



but  Imean clauses  within commas.  



Anyway, it was a very effective device. 



Cudos.




 


Alice sub for feb
 



Aunt Lydia’s Player Piano



 



Family-historypoem 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 MarchingBand



with a Sousa-type uniform



(part of which my sister still has at herColorado 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 grandfatherplay his unusual brass instrument,



I never heard my Aunt Lydia play the piano



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



Her older daughter, Sandra, in purple and grayuniform,



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 bringforth



without the touch of human hands on the ivorykeys.



 



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 andleft the farm,



after Aunt Lydia no longer had chickens



whose eggs she had gathered daily for decades inher upturned apron--



her son who to this day still works the farm,



who still drives a Corvette, computerizedcombine, and snowmobile--



for reasons unbeknownst to my mother and me andall--



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 onFebruary 16, 2021



 



For critique session of Group2:  February 25, 2021, Thursday



 




 


alicejmassa at gmail.com



Stay warm and well!




 



 


_______________________________________________
Group2 mailing list
Group2 at bluegrasspals.com
http://blu


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://bluegrasspals.com/pipermail/group2/attachments/20210309/710af3cb/attachment-0001.html>