Carved from the seasoned hearts of rosewood -
  the fine grain veined black
   through the sheen of maroon -
  my father's piano
   was the centre of home;

the sounding-board of thought and feeling
  ignited by
   the heartbeat, heartbeat, heartbeat
 threading through the scales
  of pitch in time.

Look at it unpacked -
  a junction box of forged connections,
   the waves of felts
 in red and green and deep sky blue,
   the interleaved shanks,

the hammers and dampers, stacked and packed in
  as close as a skeleton,
   stitched through with steel -
 the plumblines of tension -
   the strings spun around

their curved constellation of chromium pins
  scattered on a sky
   gilded Kruggerand gold.
 Always I was staggered
   by the deep bass darkness

catching at my heart, resounding around
  my lungs and bones,
   by the tinsel glissando
 housed in high ivories
   at the edge of sound -

the hammers' attack on the strings forging joy,
  then tempering tenderness.
   This is the work of love -
 the testing of harmonies
   through the risk

of dissonance, trying again as the hands fall apart,
  taking on silence
   when the afternoon fades -
 practice and grace,
  as light ebbs away before tea.