piano

life whirls --

blowing in
through open windows
and doors....

in the puff of air against my face,
i am sometimes halted --

i sense a cadence
within the rush
and routine
of daily living

a sort of miraculous rhythm
of comings and goings

haves and haven'ts

old age and death

uncomfortable pregnancies
delirious births

iridescent joy
rending grief....

pausing at the threshold,
i become aware of life's notes --

running and chasing and loving
each other across
the keys of a distant piano....

despite despair
abreast of beauty

i stand enwrapped
by eternity....

•

once,
on the way up into
an indelibly still
exquisitely soft
grey whispery dawn....

up, from deep
peaceful
midnight blue
dreams --

i heard the river rushing by me again....

it was like waking
to god....

or to a lover's touch....

i and the river
--and the wind
and the sound--

and

the air
the light
the dark
the depth

we lay blended into
one moment....

i couldn't tell if i were the river --
or was i by the river?

when the night-current
softly buoyed me up
to full wakefulness,
the lovesong of the river merged

into whooshing tires
on a distant motorway....

i lay bereaved....

oh my river....
what incandescent cruelty
in this life

turned you into

a highway?

•

yet inside me these things dwell:

the silence the river the dawn
the darkness the light....

and now and then

singularity

re-expresses itself

through a puff of breeze
across a sunny expanse of pavement....

through voices joined in friendship
wafting up from sidewalks below....

through a single piano note
wandering through the air --

dropped delicately

like a curtsey

upon my delighted ear....



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© 2011
beth anne boardman