Piano in a Country Town

Uncle Ron

Sometimes I stayed at Burnie with Auntie Meg (Mum’s sister) and her husband Uncle Ron Robertson. This poem for Uncle Ron was written on 7 June 1987.

Piano in a Country Town

A Poem for Uncle Ron
Peter MacFie (1987)

Chopin tinged with regret
on my uncle’s Bechstein
In the lounge room
of a country town
With a window and verandah over houses
and the summer sea.

Entered like an altar
when uncle played
With slow loping arms
lifting from the keys
Sifting through the keys
to deftly choose
these
and those,
and those
and these.

During the day his hands sorted and stacked paper
in the fluming paper mill finishing room.
The only man, the lonely, jolly man among 80 women.
The elite from the country town
Rejected the man from the mill
and paid no respect to the framed certificate from London.

His push bike rode him home at dinner time
And a “Jo-Jo Witty!!” (whistle it still) at the gate,
With grey trousers unwinding from brown trouser clips.

Cheerful and smiling, with hair neatly parted
from a line in the middle of his head
(combed mine too).
Around a starched table cloth
A silver clip hung a white embossed serviette
in hushed silence over lamb and white potato and gravy.

After, a cigarette finely rolled before
riding the three miles back to the mill.

On Sundays at the organ in
the red brick Methodist church
He played as we sang the old, old story
Of ears aching from aunt’s booming mezzo.

On holiday evenings,
the mirror-black curved wedge on turned legs
Resounded with a violin and cello
Filling the room with Schubert and The Trout,
Perfectionist with an audience of six.

Solo too of a winter evening
With arms dancing and working the keys
with tingling rippling fingers
with white nails and half moons.

Beethoven half stood in the hall
frowning in white alabaster from a black Egyptian pedestal.

Booming and thunder with rattling glass and aching ears.
No talking (no talking) until the last note,
The very last bass note
Glided away around the room
From the singing string
Vibrating.