light rain on these shaking hands,
shower the earth below,
ease the darkness of our heartland
repose—if only to forgo.

My mother is a piano
A little out of tune
Dusty keys
That play with ease
Ivory as the moon

Sometimes I’ll touch the wood
And admire its antiquity
Think of all the things that it
Ever dreamed to be

Sometimes when my fingers
Fly through a song
I wonder how this piano
Ever got so strong.

My mother is a piano,
She makes music out of air,
She answers each finger
With an embrace, with care

Her legs planted firmly
in the ground
How much I love to hear
her deep, rich sound.

The music man had
Sung the same tune
Strummed the same guitar
Since he was eleven years old.

The hurried shoes changed
The rusted coins clanged
Still day after day, he played

He was once young and bright
Radiating musical light
But still, no one stopped to listen

Through the seasons and years
He played for deaf ears
And wondered if he was a ghost

He got old and gray
His clothes starting to fray
Age had darkened his glisten

Like an aging tree he bent
As the people came and went
And still, no one stopped to listen

His heart stopped beating in his sleep
As he was lying on the cold, dark street

And still, no one stopped to listen

When the music man arrived
Tears fell from the skies
As a room full of people
Sang his song.

We change and we fall,
We change when it’s fall, brown, red
Crumpled and stepped on.

Tree roots and brown boots,
Gum stamped onto the cement…
The view from below.