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'Sostenato'

The low G, with the broken damper
continued to be heard after I had finished the Bartók.
Its sound a continuity, from 'Little Fingers' to Beethoven;
a drone drawing on my very first lesson.
I struggled with the pedals trying to silence it, while
you poked with your stick through an old pile of music.
Despite my efforts, the note spoke on,
like some ancient politician who's outlived an era
it rumbled threats, artillery fire.
This last time, you laughed, winding up the metronome
Try the trio with a little less rubato.
There can not be music without the strict passage of time!

On our first afternoon, I reached out to you
mystified by your age, by your chicken-wire bun
and by your skirts, as long as spinsterhood.
This last afternoon as I told you about travelling
you repeated my very first question.
How did you get to be so old?
Just for a second I wanted to begin again.
I wanted to walk with you as I had as a child
back into your wireless world. I wanted you to repeat your pre-scale tales;
the Great War, working, meeting Benjamin Britten. I wanted to return
to the museum where I pushed the buttons, where I understood
why you had said Miss wasn't short for missing out;
why you were pleased that I was going off to college.
Instead of thanking you, I played Debussy
and asked you about what you read as a child.

Alice in Wonderland. You fetched your copy;
the slowness of your movements embarrassed me.
But as you returned you had already started reading, and
we enjoyed one last mad-hatters tea party.
While you fiddled with spoons, drummed on cups
I flicked to the front, to the flowery inscription,
through youthful vellum hidden by the broken-backed cover.
To E, my beloved, on your fifteenth birthday
17th June 1914
The piano kept humming while you toasted scones.
It made a minor sixth with the singing kettle.

I could still hear the G as I walked out the door
it had lasted longer than the fire I had laid in the grate.
It hung on, like your zest for your next crop of pupils
but fading, like my passion for the pianoforte,
like the portrait of the young man in sepia uniform
that had sat on your piano since Passchendaele.

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