No Pocket Of Air Is Useless to Harmony

I used to put music on the stereo and then go sit down at the piano next to a big window that was shaded by a pine tree outside. But I wouldn’t play the piano while the music filled the room. Instead, I opened the top lid of the instrument to expose the steel strings of its guts, strings stretched taut inside a dark, private air. Then I leaned my head over so my ear hovered just above the opening. I closed my eyes. The wooden ribcage inside the piano rang in quiet resonance with the music outside of it. It sounded as if the piano was being played by the speakers; individual strings sang out, vibrating with the movements of the melody. It was faint. And faraway. It was beautiful. Now when I get lost in the obviousness of the visible I try to remember what the inside of an unplayed piano sounds like. Sometimes I try to imagine my body as a steel string, ringing in quiet resonance with everything around it. Sometimes it works. I feel air surrounding me. I am made of sound.