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A soldier stands with his back to us with a gun slung over his shoulder. We can’t see his face because all his attention is focused on the strangest thing: a piano standing in the middle of a wrecked landscape.
Is this a war zone? The aftermath of some sort of natural disaster? Either way the fact that this piano is not only there but in decent condition is quite remarkable.
This is such a compelling image that people can’t help but pass it around on the internet, I’ve run into it tons in the last few months alone. It’s one of those pictures that instantly makes you say ‘What’s the story behind that?’
The soldier’s clothes are pretty grimy so I’m guessing he’s been out in the field for a while by this point. Who is he? Was he patrolling the area and just happened on the piano? And I wonder if he’s plunking on random keys or if he knows how to play the piano and is playing a song he learned while back home.
The visual statement of a soldier playing a piano in the midst of a wrecked landscape is very poignant. It’s a snapshot in time that has it’s own bit of poetry and mystery about it, giving us hints at a really interesting story.
What caused the very unlikely meeting of this soldier and the piano at this particular place? The whole story might be out there somewhere, I don’t know, but even on it’s own this one second of the story is very compelling.
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I wrote a poem based on this picture! In it the soldier is in the middle of a war and he finds a piano in a clearing in a snow covered forest and when he plays it he feels like he is home with his family celebrating the holidays. (Except in my story he is American not Russian…)
Hi Neil,
That sounds like a great story for a poem :) and who knows, it might be what really happened too. Whoever that soldier was I bet he’d be surprised that someone would one day write a poem about him!