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The curtain lifts on Bryant Elementary School's Spring Recorder Recital. Ninety third-graders fumble with their instruments, take a breath and blow. Their parents, braced, breathe too as "Hot Crossed Buns" emerges, a little scatter shot-- the normal distribution brought to life. By "Go Tell Aunt Rhodie," the audience is moved by their sheer pretty-goodness, though one kid knocks her music to the floor and another squeaks to demonstrate the tail below two standard deviations below the mean. The curve implies that somewhere on stage another kid just played a note so sweet he might shatter Mrs. Wedermeyer's glasses. And if there is a mother and father who think that child is theirs, may they be forgiven even if the child shining in their eyes is moving his fingers slightly out of rhythm, even if he's never led the bell curve in his life. In consecutive measures of almost unison it's easy to believe these children are musicians. Their parents do, so stirred by "Ode to Joy" they rise to their feet with the final phrase, clapping from the darkened auditorium at once, as one, heroically, like the parents they've meant to be. Kathleen Flenniken This work is the author's work; it appears here with the permission of the author. We would like to remind our readers that it is a violation of copyright law to distribute this or any other poem appearing on the website without the express permission of the author. |
