The Millennial Pedestrian

Piano Tuner

From the open window at the old-age home
Over and over wings a tense insistent note
Struck on the home’s own geriatric upright,
A slow mechanical cicada.
Mesmerizing in its monotonal way,
It now evokes a boyhood afternoon when in my room
I’d heard the tuner work downstairs.
Advancing key by key along the octaves
Patiently he tightened every string
Striking every key until the tone was true.

Just outside the tall oak rustled
In the thundery summer air
And I knew his metronomic progress
Was itself the storm’s outrider –
When the piano was at last in tune
The storm would break against the house
Releasing in a clamorous tantrum
The violence within that ping … ping … ping.

Now across the street a roofer taps a nail.
The tuner has gone home.
The storm waits, crouching, in the west.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 20th, 2007.
It's part of the New Poems category.
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