The First Piano On The Moon
has not been launched as yet, but it could be.
It's not past human ingenuity to anchor it on some bleak lunar sea.
The vision and intelligence of man has not shown evidence more powerful than the existence of the thing itself which can be marvelled at for what it does yet seen not only as a wonderful machine but as aesthetic object. It could stand in frozen silence and be no less grand.
Of course, like every dazzling artefact, it did not suddenly appear intact, but it evolved, the simple dulcimer believed to be its earliest ancestor.
To me, more magical than Gemini 8 or Russian Soyuz 10, its intricate fine mechanism: damper, check and spring, the wires and pivot-point, everything concealed behind dark gleam of wood in which the keys lie white as milk and black as pitch.
So dream of it, lid lifted to beguile a future astronaut with its fixed smile.
Quite possible, by then, he would not know what purpose this device once served, although he'd never doubt that it was made by man, but hardly guess that parts of it began as bits of mammoth and its habitat, nor, in that sterile silence, realise that, held in this graceful engine's wooden chest, chained, sonic constellations glittering rest.
Vernon Scannell
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