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Practice

Today's poem is Practice by Betsy Sholl. It is read by Julia Bouwsma.

Practice

It all clouds, crowds back—my sister
hunched over the keys, cluster of notes
her hands can't reach or make fast enough.
She tries over and over that one tiny patch
of Bach pulled out from the rest like rubble
at the shore we poked through for treasure.

"If you are squeamish," Sappho says,
"don't prod the beach rubble," Sappho
who lived by the sea, soaking in its rhythms,
that first heavy wave shush hitting shore,
then the next softer shush and again, shush.
How my sister shushed me over and over

as she prodded those keys, until finally
a cloud would burst, her fists would slam
down in a crash of sound, a wail of how
she'll never get it right, never be good
enough, it's too hard. But then the storm
would pass and she'd be trying again.

For years I heard only repeated pieces
like our old Evinrude refusing to start,
the choke not right, the engine not
catching, no sputter and shift into glide.
I had no clue what magnificent cargo
my sister was trying to haul, what was

inside the piano and inside her, depths
the ocean only hints at tossing up rubble,
fragments of Sappho, notes my sister now
lifts off the page, pours through her hands,
until if you didn't know you'd think
it was always easy, always whole.