Don't Give Up Music for Notes

I softly fingered black-white keys, I could not press a tune. So I’d just watch as They would play, the fingers dipping clouds of white like mist in valleys come to frolic here. A hundred years it stood – now more. And I convinced myself that it would never sing for me. But then a bow was placed in my right hand, and I was told to read the notes. Oh how I missed the clouds of white. In time I learned to read the circles – it wasn’t song to me. But as I screeched the metal knife (and just as sharp) across the strings, I cleared the mist of black and white, then I began to press the keys again. At first I read The Autumn Leaves, then Cello Song and all the paper I could find. But dots still seemed a trivial thing – so then I played without them. Skies, so dark would sing beneath my hand as I imagined trains to Tokyo and played the pentatonic scale. But soon the miles of West Virginia sky glide by and we arrived to sleeting rain and Mount Rainier as I wrote singing-songs to pass the time. The houses, years, they floated by like streams. Then quickly I went out to learn some mysteries. Like names of chords and tones that lead and ways to jazz. I once haphazardly began to trip, then I discovered those. Those notes I still detest, make no mistake. I once began to play for them and not for you. But now I’m back, my friend, just keep on showing me the way until I wend.