The Little Clavier Each poem is a miniature makeshift piano;  they're all tuned slightly differently, a bit beat up, perhaps, with a few misplaced,  broken strings, but it's the best we've got; we do not play, but simply      push the pedals down, sitting quietly, listening to the strings resonate or sing, giving back      voices hidden within the marvelous sea of chaos that surrounds us.

(Photo: Life, May 17th, 1937 10 cents: INDIANAPOLIS HEARS
274 MUSICIANS PLAY 160 GRAND PIANOS SIMULTANEOUSLY
"some 1000 pianists from 40 Indiana communities plowed through Chopin and
Strauss and Schubert and List and other composers during the afternoon and
evening programs." Fragment from center fold; no photographer mentioned.)

| go to the Picture/Poem Poster of the above text:  The Little Clavier shown at the right (prints 81/2 x 11" (A4))  The Little Clavier: pdf |

"Even though the poem is short and rather comical in tone,
I do wish to suggest something of this sense of space. I also
wish to go further and suggest something still more subtle and perhaps
a bit harder to visualize, but not to sense: the idea of a motionless  or
neutral passivity  which is at once quiet and yet full of energy, ready
to reflect or respond to the world which surrounds us."