Ballade

by

I reach for a thought that melts away

…snow falling outside a sliding glass door

…children playing in white too bright for my mind.

 Only shadows remain.

She looks into my camera, her wide eyes sparkling,

bundled in a snowsuit on a day once too crisp.

I forget….was she wearing pink?  orange? 

Where was her brother?

I stood beside a baby grand piano that day, vowing to remember

details tucked inside a mental scrapbook that became, over time,

nothing more than a child’s drawing…

 

…while my son hid under the piano, waiting for his chance to shine. 

 

Once, I played out my life on that piano,

remembering the full moon outside a concert hall

giving life to the notes of Debussy’s Ballade.

 

I know not of the days with his wife, or troubles with his children.

All that remains are the impressions, a taste of his emotions that once

flowed through fingers able to touch the fleeting thoughts,

though not as well.

 

Category : poem, poetry
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