PIANO

 

PIANO

For Lucy W. Young

There is a piano always weeping

In the corner of my dream,

Poem, reverie, piano grand

Grandiloquent filling my consciousness

With song, dappling transcriptions from memory,

On Tiny gardens,

Joy, the wistfulness that comes

When we were so young

We could not echo locate

The yearning of tender buds on trees

Nor find in any mirror held up to dazzle light

The apricot orchards there, lost clouds

And the skies are milky and I can’t return

Trade in my childish things for one crystal beaded

Note, floating, flying from me oh where

To reprieve the sound, heart sound specific resonance

of the piano rippling like

The waters of home, and Heaven and clarity

Would be to return them all again beloved ghosts

Exactly as they were then

As in the fairytale moments when the tide turns

And goodness returns to the lanes

In the days I lived spooning cherry jam on bread

Innocent of the roads that lay ahead

As children are for the most part oh

Thank God for the piano weeping still

Beyond all possible music I have ever loved

In the plum darkness of my grandmother’s sunlit studio

With the picture window that

Looked out on the Milky Way.

mary angela douglas 13 may 2024