Cecil Plays the Piano , Oil on canvas m Margaret Aycock

I did this painting, which is kind of a departure for me, for a show that Scott and I did last year at right about this time.  The show was a back and forth between painting and poems.

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Here is the corresponding poem written by Scott Aycock

CECIL

Cecil keeps our yard trim as a sailor’s beard- 

not a blade of grass out of place.

With a surveyor’s eye he places poles along 

the hedge row, 

making Grandma’s English Boxwoods 

level as poured cement, 

stretching the length of the drive.

He starts early and works through, into the 

heat of the day.

I am just a boy.

Cecil comes to back door, hat in hand, like a child asking a favor of a man.

“Mr. Jo Eddie’s grandson, you ‘spose I could have me some ‘freshment?”

I go under sink where grandma keeps the 

drink, pour comfort from a bottle.

I place a capful in a glass, fill the rest with water.

It turns the color of rosin.

That’ll do, Mr. Jo Eddie’s grandson, don’t need no ice.

He tips his head, tosses the drink, and wipes 

his mouth.

It is a litany of motion.

Five drinks into the day, his tools put away,

Cecil comes to the door-  a final drink to stay 

the blues away.

I being home alone,

Cecil points with fingered bone 

towards ivories lined up in a row.

“Mr. Jo Eddie’s grandson, I can make that 

coffin sing.

Some folks they scared a dyin’, but they ain’t got that rhythm thang.”

Cecil straddles piano bench, with one leg north, the other east,

to work the pedals, to keep the beat.

With both hands poised on whitened keys, 

his long black fingers fill spaces,

make dark holes in the music, 

as he begins a slow growl, a low moan.

“How…how…how…uh…uh…unh.

Gonna’ chase those blues.

How…how…how…uh…uh…unh.

Gonna’ chase those blues.”

Bowed over the keys, eyes closed, 

Cecil is there in some sepia-toned place.  

It seems with every note, with every chord,

Cecil spills more of himself between the keys, 

as though the music is drinking him one note 

at a time.

With an ear bent to the ivories, listening for the sound of suffering as it leaves his fingertips;

Cecil’s hand begins to jitter, and juke, and then to jive, 

into some boogie-woogie slide.

 His huge black hands, like crows, 

flap the width of the piano, 

as  Cecil tosses back his head, enraptured. 

I am just a boy held in time.  

Watching. 

As Cecil’s shoulders sway in time to the beat, 

mouth open, he eats.

Drinking notes, swallowing chords, 

half-digested they come spilling forth, 

crude and primitive.

A truer sound.