Silence of the Song
By Janice P. Egry, Verbank, New York
Grand Prize, Dancing Poetry Festival, 2008
When you go,
you’ll pack your bag
with all the glissandos,
all the chromatics and crescendos,
all the jazz improvisations
that you ever created.
You’ll leave your compositions
on the shelf to mourn the stillness
of their paper and their ink.
The day will break, early sun
will glint to gold the dust
that drifts on muted strings.
And I will drop into an easy chair
to watch a dark piano fill the room
with your silence.
The white, the black, immobile
in their beds, can only sleep
and dream your touch away.
There, in your easy chair,
I’ll sit all day and listen,
listen to a piece of furniture
do nothing but loom large
in the middle of a room,
a mute mahogany box
that will not speak to me again
however long I watch or listen.
Yet, meandering along my mind
will be your song, your rhythm
in my heartbeat, and my feet
will remember to dance
for having loved you.
|
