At first<\/p>\n\n\n\n
it was only one note,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
a familiar key
that seemed to have moved
during the night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He blamed the piano.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then the humidity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then his glasses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then the audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then, eventually, the mirror.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His fingers,
which once crossed keyboards
like old friends<\/p>\n\n\n\n
began asking directions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scales became negotiations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The right hand
waited for the left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The left hand
sometimes forgot
why it arrived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He laughed more often.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not because it was funny,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
but embarrassment
is easier to carry
if you teach it to think this is a joke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The hardest part was remembering
how effortlessly
the music had once appeared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As if somewhere
inside a younger body<\/p>\n\n\n\n
there lived a stranger<\/p>\n\n\n\n
who could do impossible things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One afternoon<\/p>\n\n\n\n
he stopped practicing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just for that day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The silence
was technically flawless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Months later,
he opened the piano again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His hands hovered
above the keys,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
two old birds
uncertain
about the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He played one chord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He heard something
he had spent decades
playing too loudly to notice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The sound<\/p>\n\n\n\n
of a man<\/p>\n\n\n\n
still listening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At first it was only one note, a familiar keythat seemed to have movedduring the night. He blamed the piano. Then the humidity. Then his glasses. Then the audience. Then, […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"Layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[902],"tags":[],"class_list":["entry","author-rockbob","post-9644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9644\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}