the harp

too tall to be furniture, too quiet to be a presence. the gilt has worn off the pillar where a hand always rested. there is a deeper polish at that exact place — the wood remembers what skin asked of it.

thirty-eight strings, the lowest of them gut, the rest steel; six of them broken at various times and never fully replaced. the pedals are stiff. the sharping rods, brass, have gone the colour of an old coin and a few are bent. it has not been tuned this winter. it has not been tuned for several winters.

the last to play it was a tall woman who came to the house once a month. she would arrive in coat and gloves, sit, take ten minutes to tune, and play three slow pieces. she stopped coming the year someone else stopped coming. now the harp does what harps do alone — it answers a rumour of a draught with a single sympathetic string.

field-note: cover removed. dust along the upper neck in a soft grey line.

humming · chime · the violin · the organ · silence