Talent in Teacups

This is a poem about my favourite uncle. Someone who above all taught me a love of music and that everyone has hidden gifts. He is infinitely kind, all I can do in this life is to try to emulate him.

Mute, my uncle never learnt

to count beyond the number

of sugars to stir into his own cup of tea

or to read beyond the suns slants and angles.

He can only thumb through picture books

 

- pause at towns he knows.

remember their beaches’ scent

or chill of their blue-rimmed mountains;

the taste of pub food eaten

when my mum was a child, half a century past;

 

recall the clink and splash of a Shilling

his brother rolled, by accident, down a drainpipe;

the exact yellow of a canary some sixty years dead;

the next door neighbor’s smile

as she asked for milk.

 

He knows how to fit jigsaws

in the way a well-trained conductor

leads an orchestra. He doesn’t need the pictures,

only the touch of his smudged fingers,

for that is how he plays the piano.

 

Eyes tight shut, swaying to that melody

hidden in his head for seventy years

and never voiced, but always, like a vinyl,

secreted in some dusty sleeve

ready to be picked and listened to.  

 

 

Reviews

[fireblossom]

You took me there. I pictured the little farm where I lived for some years in my youth. I know the smell of farmers coming to the kitchen for a cup of coffee after milking. I know of an old long dead grandfather who was a poet but who no one read till he passed past our praise.

To break this down for you:

You set the tone in the first few lines and in the first stanza as a whole.

My uncle never learnt
to count beyond the number
of sugars to stir into his own cup of tea

He was a treasure of experience inside that mind of his. How many took time to listen or to draw him out?
You then go on to show us why he deserves our respect.

He knows how to fit jigsaws
in the way a well-trained conductor
leads an orchestra, he doesn't need the pictures,
only the touch of his smudged fingers alone
for that is how he plays the piano.

Really great writing. A cut above.

[Kevin Vorshak]

A warm and wonderful tribute for sure, not to mention a good lesson for everyone. Very insightful, your uncle, and likely much wiser than most of us.

[Donald Meikle]

Life is for living, memories and music are like straps on a tram. You have no wasted words here Sel. He's taught you much, and did it easily I'll wager.

[AK]

As I read this I imagined his smile. Already I feel like I know your uncle better than I knew my own. Thank you for this remarkable piece.

[W.k.kortas]

Has the tightness you'd find in an academic set-piece, but with warmth and vital imagery that raise it above mere literary equations. Very nicely written and heart-felt tribute.

[Ed Hart]

how wonderful! not just about him, but about you...

the good, the better, the best poets, here or anywhere or anytime, have learned to rest confidently in their 'voice'...you sing a lovely song, my dear, and have as yet a full child's heart for reference...

[Emily B]

oh, Sel, I love him. He is so kind. And I happen to believe in Gardiner's theories of intelligence. We aren't all 'smart' in the same way. We each have our own gifts. I believe there must be infinite wisdom in your uncle's cunning memory and kind smile.