Dreampiano

Day II. (Continued)

"There's a whole lotta shakin' goin' on"
Jerry Lee Lewis

I am sitting at an upright piano. Old, dark cherry red wood. Real ivory keys, stained a shade yellow and some chipped with age. I look down at my hands as they begin to play effortlessly. I am aware that I am dreaming. I take note that I am playing much better than I do while awake.
The high F key sticks a little. The song is familiar to me, but I don't recognize it fully. Slow, Waltz, in C. One...twothree....One....twothree.....One.....twothree....
The lid of the piano is off, and the notes are crisp and bright...I close my eyes in the dream, and feel the weight of my fingers indenting the keys, I'm inside the piano now, or at least my eyes are, I watch the padded mallets strike the strings, as my body is still playing the keys and tamping down the foot pedal in time with the changes. I've heard this song somewhere before, deep in my memory. Maybe my mother played it when I was a child. Maybe I heard it in church. No...that's not it...
It reminds me of a song called 'Poughkeepsie' by a band called 'Over the Rhine', but its not it at all...and 'Poughkeepsie' is played on an acoustic guitar. I don't know...its on the tip of my mind...the song's identity...Wait a minute! This is my song! I haven't written it yet! I'm writing it now, in my sleep! I hone in on my fingers moving. "Don't crush the bird", my childhood piano teacher would say. She told me that there was an invisible bluebird (or at least I pictured him as a bluebird) living under my palms while I played piano. Proper form while playing would leave enough space between palms and keys for the bird to breathe and avoid being squished. I slowly wake up out the dream...the song hangs on the air...in my hotel room...or is it in my head...or is it everywhere?...
I begin to hum the melody as objects in the room come into focus...
The song is still with me while I take a shower, put on my clothes and boots, and walk out the door, into the wisp of Tennessee breeze in the evening.