No Idea of my own lately, but...

I've been reading a tad more lately (which doesn't say much since I'd pretty much fallen off the literary wagon, what with my hectic schedule). Poetry in particular. Most lately, I've picked up the poetry of Billy Collins, who has come highly recommended from several people whose literary (and otherwise) opinions I value a great deal. I am in the middle of of Collins' work called Sailing Alone Around the Room, which is a collection of his poems from several anthologies over the years. I love poetry that is both so thoughtful and accessible, intelligent, but not pretentiously obscure. Here is one of my favorites, and I encourage you to pick up this book and peruse if you get a chance.

Piano Lessons

1

My teacher lies on the floor with a bad back

off to the side of the piano.

I sit up straight on the stool.

He begins by telling me that every key

is like a different room

and I am a blind man who must learn

to walk through all twelve of them

without hitting the furniture.

I feel myself reach for the first doorknob.

2

He tells me that every scale has a shape

and I have to learn how to hold

each one in my hands.

At home I practice with my eyes closed.

C is an open book.

D is a vase with two handles.

G flat is a black boot.

E has the legs of a bird.

3

He says the scale is the mother of the chords.

I can see her pacing the bedroom floor

waiting for her children to come home.

They are out at nightclubs shading and lighting

all the songs while couples dance slowly

or stare at one another across tables.

This is the way it must be. After all,

just the right chord can bring you to tears

but no one listens to the scales,

no one listens to their mother.

4

I am doing my scales,

the familiar anthems of childhood.

My fingers climbs the ladder of notes

and come back down without turning around.

Anyone walking under this open window

would picture a girl of about ten

sitting at the keyboard with perfect posture,

not me slumped over in my bathrobe, disheveled,

like a white Horace Silver.

5

I am learning to play

"It Might As Well Be Spring"

but my left hand would rather be jingling

the change in the darkness of my pocket

or take a nap on an armrest.

I have to drag him into the music

like a difficult and neglected child.

This is the revenge of the one who never gets

to hold the pen or wave good-bye,

and now, who never gets to play the melody.

6

Even when I am not playing, I think about the piano.

It is the largest, heaviest,

and most beautiful object in this house.

I pause in the doorway just to take it all in.

And late at night I picture it downstairs,

this hallucination standing on three legs,

this curious beast with its enormous moonlit smile.