Black and White Fusing

How furiously many navigate
these polarized worlds of image, sound
 texture and resonant color
or lack of.

For the ill-informed
black’s half seldom becomes white’s whole,
black often only a discordant white.

As paradox is banished,
stunted minds only perceive one
or the other. 

Yet

For a precious few,
those who sit before
the black and white world of a keyboard,
tendon,
bone and skin
stretch forth
as limber fingers,
merging color’s deep mix
into a wash of infinite searching
for sound’s hue and texture,
giving birth to unique tone and vision,
enabling layers of voices to step forth,
becoming echoes to overlay echoes,
creating sound of distinguished structures.

Hands realize the enigmatic reach,
that unheard touch to fill the stretch,
to speak that which might remain mute
were it not for those with need.

Such is the struggle.

Behind such digits of expression
resides a restive pulse,
that place where artistry gathers legitimacy,
where striving to be felt as a language
yet to be defined,
suffices the heart’s desire,
the mind’s nourishment.

Such is the longing and mystery a keyboard artist seeks to understand.