The Sand Hill Review               http://www.sandhillreview.org 2010

The Music Teacher

My father’s dead half my life.

Now his students, my classmates,

summon a reunion fifty years

since graduation, come looking

for their music teacher, find me

no longer the boy with a horn.

I told them how he became

The Old Timer—from tinkering

with fiddles, flutes, clarinets,

he adopted decrepit antiques—

wooden works, wags on the wall—

taught old clocks to sing and whistle

quarters and hours, but irregularly

so each could solo its tune.

He indulged his crazy chorus,

let their songs obscure the day,

and the clock beats echoed

his faltering heart.

I told about his gospel,

not once a prayer,

unless we count Goddam—

but Sunday mornings near the end

of a short praiseworthy life

he strolled around the corner

into the white clapboard farm house

revived as an evangelical church

and piano-played the hymnal blues

(the only witness who was white)

just for the hell of singing out

Hallelujah! Roll, Jordan, Roll.

I told them more than they needed to know.

He was still their favorite teacher,

the reason, some say, we felt so close

as a class. But I’m wrapped up

in the other gifts a man provides his son,

least the subject he taught and I rebuffed.

What my dad knew was the worth of time.

Peter Neil Carroll