The Piano

There was a piano wherever we went. Remember? It was weathered by travel, tuned by the bumps of roads and cargo. There was this gently bruised melody in those many places we called home. And some nights, when dad travelled to churches, mom would play at home. The sounds, the labored repetition of practice - sometimes hammered, sometimes caressed notes, played by a mind full of thoughts and worries. On other nights, two sets of hands would play, My mother and brother, carving unison out of an old piano. Other nights, when my younger brother and I would be at home, mother would play the piano by our father at church. Our second-mother, maid, ‘empleada’, would sit to play and practice The most fragile tone of all. A gently overzealous tempo. My younger brother and I would run by the piano, and in our parentless paradise We would dance around her and pounce on notes, pushing her concentration, playfully wondering where her limits were. Her mission, with an effervescent smile, was to defy chaos. There would be other times when, while everyone was gone, I would sit on the piano bench. The wood pieces greeting each other under my weight, creaking a welcome sound through travel-weary wood. I would sit and play one minor note. That sound traveled to deep places. There the note would rest, and comfort the yearning for the familiar. I know you did the same, in your own way. Finding small tokens of comfort throughout the day, that would root the transient in you. That melody was a part of home. This piano and its old notes, sweet melancholic constant in our family. Home had the unlikeliest keys. There was a piano, and its notes were constant. In places that changed so often, the notes remained the same. Those notes still ring in my head when I'm at the cusp of sleep. In those ebonies - those minor keys I loved so much, I can hear the whisper, "I love you.  You're Home."