The Lesson

Pouring through the pages,
Hieroglyphics in every sentence,
Her eyes squint at the “LYD”
“MIX” turns and churns
in a cognitive voice that attempts English,
but ponders in Korean.


Her eyes glance up
To images of yellow sunflowers
and windy green fields of summer grass.
Through the cerulean blue sky,
The music calls to her,
Beseeches her focus and attention,
A promise to her heart’s song
That this word will get her closer
To the Tonic she modulated to
When she first believed in the magic of sounds
So many years ago when she left
The Tonic home to which she was born
So many years prior.


“IAN”, I explain,
Can be pronounced
Like a person’s name: “Ian”.


Echoes of music resonate the Halls of the CFA:
Somewhere there is a cello
Somewhere there is a trombone
Somewhere there is a guitar
Somewhere there is a piano
Somewhere there is a voice

Somewhere there is a symphony
Battling for the attention of the gods
Against the herald angels
In all their pitch perfection:
Our human frailty makes our temporary structures
Most precious because they are so fleeting,
Thus, the rarest treasures the Universe has to offer.
Those echoes
Float down to me
As a promise that only the Piano and I know


"'LYD' is pronounced like the English word 'Lid'"
So many lids on so many dreams.
Artists beating themselves up
Because we keep falling down:
We need a constant reminder that
We all fall down, and that the bruises
Give us explosions of emotions:

Entire Universes are created
In a big bang of fury,
Or a single tear,
Or a silent chuckle at the absurdities
That daily life throws to us.
Without falling down,
We’d never appreciate the miracle that is walking:
When we make it to our destination,
We have tales to tell of the times
We wanted to give up, to give in,
And we pursued our dreams against all odds:
Those are the stories that warm hearts
And give hope.


She slowly rises and then stumbles:
“MIX
O
RID
IAN?”


I help her up:
“Good! You’re almost there.
MIX
O
LID
IAN”


Her eyes gaze right,
In her mind she is sitting on the floor.
Amidst the cool breezes
And warm feelings of yesteryear,
She begins to form a haiku in her head:

“Your words are foreign
I’m deaf, must learn to hear here”


I lend a hand:
“Mix o lyd ian”


A pregnant pause.
Somewhere there are Angelic Overtones
Watching over we, the Tones and Semitones of the world.


She crawls, and stands holding onto a table leg:
“Mixo… Mixolyd…”


My eyes are not judging
Or expecting her to fail
Or staring at a clock to see when the moment will be over.


She walks: “Mixolydian”
And runs: “Mixolydian! Mixolydian! Mixolydian!!!”



I taught Lily to pronounce Mixolydian
Lily showed me my North star:

I want to teach:
I want to hear and play everything
Under, Over, and Through
The Overtonal Heaven.
I want to become the best that I can be
And journey all over the Sonority Sonar System
To the Tonal, 12-Tonal, Atonal, and Beyond,
But through all of the modulations,
The cadenza always has me flowing back to

A centric coincidental cohabitation I have with humanity:

My life is not my own.
My life is for you, and you, and you,
And for those who died before I was born,
And those who will be born after I die.

I am warding off an unspoken debt
Of which, only the Piano and I know,
The Universe’s cycles and systems
Had cast me as a character
I was unwilling to play
until now.


“Your words are foreign
I’m deaf, must learn to hear here
Water Lilies bloom.”