The Beavers' Piano and the Boy

Long ago, in an estuary formed by the erosion of a fjord, There sat a piano made of petrified wood with ivy cords. It was created by a council of beavers, which governed the waters, Who used local flora and stones to build it, with help from the otters. For these marine rodents had once heard a human strum a guitar, And they wanted their own music to impress the humans from afar. The piano's fifty-two lower keys were made of refined kyanite, While its thirty-six raised keys were made of black hematite. Its pedals were donated by some dories from the sea, Who shaped them from coral plucked from a barrier reef. As the instrument was built from aquatic and natural material, It could stand through the torment of torrents and decay of bacteria. When the piano was finished the beavers and otters stood proud, And pounced on its keys, which made sounds that were only loud. The rodents soon realized that none of them knew how to play, The piano without fingers, so they gave up on music the very next day. Fraught in their efforts, their hard work had been for naught, Until a beaver found a boy squatting on a bank looking distraught. "Why the long face, my dear child," said the beaver to the boy, Who responded: "I've failed my parents, now I'll never know joy. Today they bought me a beautiful baby-grand piano to celebrate, The years of piano lessons they paid for, on my thirteenth birthday. After seven long years of lessons and tutelage, My ability to read notes is still way below average." So the beaver brought the boy to what the animals had built, To help the boy overcome his feelings of failure and guilt. The beaver said to him then: "Play not that which you see but hear, For music is a melodic and emotional sensation that you feel in your ears." So the boy closed his eyes and rested his hands on the keys of gemstone, And listened to what he heard and played the loveliest music he'd ever known. For the boy could never read the language of music that others had wrote, But learned he could play any sound heard, when his fingers struck the right notes. So the boy played away to the sounds that he heard, The current of water, and pecked songs of a bird. As he played the animals danced with heads bobbing and nodding, And when the boy opened his eyes he saw his parents applauding.