Of course, I left it, the tuning hammer on the piano, and walked straight to the kitchen. Left the old guy out there poised, bent over it. Such a private thing between them, the wooden panel open, hammer to it, twin shafts on a maple handle. Something about it-I couldn't watch-major, not minor, then what the hell, back to minor again, that underwater rush going sharp and flat. But I could feel it in my chest. All morning, the pure ache of it. And I did nothing in the kitchen, that listening nothing, where you just look out a window and watch for anything-birds, grass bent at an angle. Because the whole time it was the slow weight of the tuning hammer, the metal strings that don't know what music is, sweet dumb narrowest expanse of the deepest ore, singing out its genius anyway. I thought to do other things-some cleaning up or fixing a cold supper for later. But I kept picturing how it was out there, the tuning hammer at the ancient upright. The old guy, a genius himself in how he bent into it. Again and again that private thing between them, hammer to the strings, twin shafts, wooden handle. I heard the turn and counterturn. It wasn't love. But I heard a shape-god, to know what I was hearing-up, then down, forgiveness, no forgiveness at all. . . . First Published in @3The Kenyon Review@1, Volume 22, Number 2 (Spring 2000). http://kenyonreview.org/roth | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ELEGY: 19. TO HIS MISTRESS GOING TO BED by JOHN DONNE THE YARN OF THE 'NANCY BELL' by WILLIAM SCHWENCK GILBERT KEENAN'S CHARGE by GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP THE LONELY CHILD by JAMES OPPENHEIM FULLNESS OF THE BIBLE by H. J. BETTS TO A SON OF EROS by LEE CARLTON BROWER |