Prelude

It is an old room in an old building

Paint peeling off its walls

Like some giant scaly snakeskin –

The old sandpapered whitewash beneath

Looks ripe and untouched –

A wrinkly newborn untouched.

Little coffee-stained ply board tables for two

Scattered in a seemingly random nonsense

Across the red-cemented floor –

And in the middle of it all –

The dull dusty grand – its broken keys

Juggled in a line of steps – arranged

As an obstacle course for the most daring of pianists –

Waiting for a long-awaited touch –

Any touch – to hear its voice again.

It hasn’t heard its own voice in ages.

It doesn’t know what it will sound like –

Silent, croaky, off or miraculously on,

Muffled, mournful… it forgets.

Like people forget, the colour of their skin,

The colour of their souls –

How their fingers used to move

Across shiny black and white keys

In bright stage light. They will heal each other now –

The little bent woman standing

Against the frame of the old doorway –

And the piano, its tight strings

Tingling with apprehension under its dusty cover.

Between skin and wood, between wait and touch

While the old strings find life – and old fingers meaning

Or the other way around – what’s the difference?

It is an old room in an old building – and it’s singing.