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Piano Teacher
by Kristina Woodhillshe called again tonight
she wanted to thank me
for my Christmas card
her speech was clear but slightly slurred
she apologized for not having
her teeth in as we talked
she said she never puts them in anymore
unless she goes out
she tried hearing aids last year
but has discarded them as
too much trouble
talking on the phone seemed
to work just fine, we agreed
she mentions she is house bound now
it upsets her that she can no longer
clean her walls and ceilings as she
once did, nor wax her floors
a yearly ritual - she is truly a very tidy woman
she worries that when she dies
(this she tells me she has told her daughter)
the people who buy her house
will notice that it is not as clean
as she would have liked
I ask if she still plays her piano
she hasn't touched it in years, she admits
odd, she adds, as she used to play
for hours
nor her guitar and harmonica
that she played together so well
cowboy songs
oh, how she could play! she declares
her friend brings her books
reading is her passion now
she is reading one about
Elizabeth Taylor
she loved all of her movies
but the things in the book
about Elizabeth Taylor are
just terrible - is she really
like that?
I would not believe how Prineville
has changed, she cautions
the Californians have taken over
but she really wants to know
what I've been doing
I give her a sketch of our year
trying not to repeat too much of
what I wrote to her
she called again tonight
it is the second time she has
called at Christmas
and the second time I have heard
her voice since I was 10 years old
her beginning piano student
I think she can no longer write easily,
but I do not ask that question
I do not remember her face
I do not remember her house
except a hint of an obscure living room
where I sat petrified at her upright piano
as she asked me to play
White Christmas for her friend
I never tell her I cannot remember her features
I never saw her again after we moved
she sent condolences when my father died
and we have exchanged Christmas
cards ever since, now almost 30 years
we are like two voices drifting together
in a dense Oregon valley fog
an annual ladling from a long cold soup
the peppery liquid in the spoon murky
as I gaze into its settling pool
wistful for just a glimpse of the little girl
and the young woman who sat beside her
guiding her eager, tentative hands
12/17/2008 Author's Note: Mrs. Wanda Foster - thank you
Posted on 12/17/2008
Copyright © 2025 Kristina Woodhill
| Member Comments on this Poem |
| Posted by Gregory O'Neill on 12/17/08 at 07:37 PM Wonderful Kristina! I love the slight melancholy of the piece. For I do truely believe that the imagination is nostalgia for the past, the absent; and is the liquid solution in which art develops the snapshot of reality. You have an excellent "camera"....thanks.
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| Posted by George Hoerner on 12/18/08 at 01:02 AM Memories, so much more important as one ages. People I think are far more important than things although we seem to attach much to things in this country. Lovely Kristina, lovely! |
| Posted by Gabriel Ricard on 12/18/08 at 04:45 AM A stunning, beautifully written memory. |
| Posted by Laurie Blum on 12/18/08 at 02:35 PM This is warm and loving...the perfect memory for the Holiday Season. |
| Posted by Quentin S Clingerman on 12/18/08 at 04:42 PM Very warm, wistful, wonderful, and sad. A tribute to long lasting friendship. |
| Posted by Melissa Panther on 12/18/08 at 11:34 PM A beautifully expressed meandering of memories, every line. |
| Posted by Roger J Kenyon on 01/03/09 at 03:04 AM I'm happy about reading this excellent poem and sad to contemplating the future. Thank you Kristina. |
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