SYMPATHETIC RESONANCE
(listen to the poem, read by Diane R. Wiener)
For Jason Castonguay, pianist who is blind
We love to listen and follow
the sounds of his agile fingers
into the soft labor
of his sustained piano.
We play barely well enough
to know that our arpeggiated chords
and judicious pedal use
make us sound better than we are.
We stretch second and third chord
inversions because they are easier to reach.
People recognize our melodies though
we never roam the whole keyboard.
We seek the safety of C
and the wonder of B-flat wistful.
We avoid more than two sharps or flats
and we can’t manage jazz.
We play the first four measures
of a Bach prelude
or Beethoven’s Moonlight opening
never confessing we can’t go farther.
We embrace keyboard sounds
to distract and make people smile—
pipe organs and carollins,
steel drums and pitched timpani.
We might have one trick—
transposed to fit a singer’s voice,
play without sheet music,
accompany a song we’ve never heard.
Make no mistake while making many mistakes.
We have passion but always warn people
to keep singing no matter what because
we’ll catch up to end in the right place.
Are we better off not knowing
the joy and burden of brilliance
that can be called on at will?
We’ll never know.
We admire his sure-handed long echoes;
his generosity and deceptive cadences
knowing his magic if not his skill.
we are so lucky.
Back to Top of Page | Back to Poetry | Back to Volume 19, Issue 1 – Summer 2025
About the Author
Nancy Scott’s over 975 essays and poems have appeared in magazines, literary journals, anthologies, newspapers, and as audio commentaries. Her latest chapbook appears on Amazon, The Almost Abecedarian. She won First Prize in the 2009 International Onkyo Braille Essay Contest. Recent work appears in *82 Review, Black Fox Literary Magazine, Braille Forum, Chrysanthemum, Kaleidoscope, One Sentence Poems, Pulse Voices, Shark Reef, Wordgathering, and The Mighty, which regularly publishes to Yahoo News.