The Prepared Piano: (For John Cage)

It knocks. Does it knock? What knocks?
Neither grief nor joy.
A whisper
plunders what never was heard
by a piano before.
Perhaps a mechanical bird,
not Byzantine, not of gold,
yet a wonder, sings
in a cold hall
of a thing
never seen by the eyes
of a piano before.
Has the instrument gone daft?
Can it know what is meant?
Or is it intent only
on what is learned by laughter?
earned by
surprise? Surprise!
Surprise!