Piled books on the piano bench

Put me on them and pulled me forward, my feet left dangling precariously

Ran her sharp and crooked finger down my spine

And placed my 6-year-old index finger on one ivory key –

[How can you feel your Soul through plastic?

Surely if there is to be piano, if there is to be Soul, there must be ivory,

And the cost of the Soul of the elephant must be accounted for elsewhere].

I stared at the child wandering the keyboard in print

Who was being cautioned, in picture, to avoid the "Forest of Failure":

The piano books then, even the piano books, spoke of character –

And the "Bog of Sloth" terrified me then as it terrifies me now.

My finger reached for the black thing as I swung my feet beneath me,

And she fiercely moved my finger back to the ivory

And firmly silenced my ankle with her clawlike hand;

I feared the "Nothingness of Not Knowing",

The "Agony of Abandonment",

And the "Wrath of Wrongful Behavior",

And wondered why there was no one to tell me why I had been left there

Captured by a witch,

A piece of paper in front of me,

A book beneath me,

My fingers, my feet, my back no longer my own.

And so, with my finger placed upon what I was told was “Middle C’

It began –

The endless years of boring, demanding iron-disciplined scales

That would one day

Miraculously

become Tchaikovsky’s “Piano Concerto No 1”

which is my philosophy of life,

(“Music,” said Beethoven, “is a higher revelation than philosophy”).

and Chopin’s “Polonaise,”

which is my Soul.

Through the years I played my Soul –

If we are feelings, I knew me only through my fingers;

I became the music I played, and often it was heard.

Nana beat me, yes,

And destroyed my mother, yes,

But she would ask me to play for her –

The one thing that was never a command

For in her German soul she knew one could not command the Soul of another

So deeply she knew this, her asking was almost a plea;

And she would sit quietly, all mine,

Her eyes closed,

Her hands clasped in rapture,

And I knew what it was to captivate someone completely

And please them deeply

The <I> that was the music that played me.

But as time passed,

I found myself among those even Chopin could not please

And to whom the Soul of an elephant was more important than the Soul of me,

Which must be accounted for elsewhere, yes, by the judger of all Souls,

But the Soul of me was more important than the Soul of an elephant to me

And those who value the Soul of an elephant more should surely live with an elephant

Not me;

So I and the music that played me became estranged,

And we were no longer the same thing.

Confused, I began to play the piano

Instead of to play music,

And the music that had always played me

Left the piano that I played

A piano with white plastic keys –

The elephant had been saved

But not me –

home next

"Susan," said Chopin. "Susan, play me. Play me though your house burns. Let it burn to the ground but play my Polonaise, my Polish Polonaise, my Polonaise to Poland . . . Poland beyond the Moon " This is a true story. Susan Dunn played Chopin's Polonaisethough it was her Soul that burned. And this was indeed how she came to know herself through her fingers..