Last week on the morning before Election Day I fell off a high and unfamiliar bed in Florida and broke my collarbone! There should be something metaphorical about that, though I don’t know what it could be, other than perhaps reaching for dreams that weren’t going to happen (at least in Florida).  Having a fracture has thrown a bit of a crimp in my style. No cardio aerobics, no yoga, and worst of all no piano playing. It’s conjured up some images of my Grandma Jeanne, pictured below with my daughter when when was a baby, who lost her mojo and soon after, her mind, when arthritis prevented her from playing.

But yesterday, after a week of piano hiatus, I couldn’t stay away, so I sat down at the piano and played Maria from West Side Story with my (healthy) right hand, letting it travel from the melody to the base line and allowing myself to have more fun fooling around since I couldn’t really do that much with only 5 of my 10 fingers. The song had been in my head since I watched part of the Spielberg West Side Story film on the plane. I didn’t like the film that much, though I think that might have been because of the mucky plane sound and the small screen. When I look at the comparative versions of Maria from the 1961 version and the Spielberg 2021 version, the new version is clearly better. And thank goodness–no lip-syncing. The actors are doing the job!

What’s also difficult with a broken collarbone is writing a poem a day in November, part of the fundraising effort I do every year to benefit the Center for New Americans, which provides English classes and advocacy for refugees and immigrants here in Western Massachusetts. But playing Maria prompted the beginnings of a poem called One-Handed Piano. It will continue to morph and develop, as most of my poetic efforts in November do, but here are a few lines I like:

On the damaged arm, fingertips hang
forcing you to listen with curious ears
to find in harmonics the touch

of your inner glowing, as the healthy hand
travels into forbidden territory
a newcomer in the land of lower notes.

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