Our Piano Springs a Leak

The piano begins to flood

Or are the keys encroaching on the pond?

The lily pads are biased, don’t trust them.

Closer to pond scum,

Than melodic virtuosos,

They’ll ensnare you

in their tangled bed of roots.

Sounds and sights

Welded together

By a transparent blacksmith,

Undesired in the modern age.

Yet, their gifts are forged

For every baby shower

Maintained until old age,

Displayed in our every action

That doesn’t result in falling down

Viciously.

Gravity, the true musician,

Lifts the keys upward.

Notes of Vivaldi crash into the simple joys

Of a summer evening,

Springing a leak in our row boat.

Ebony fingers

Gently press

Ivory keys,

Duke Ellington

was a past life friend to me.

Still I must chastise zen

for disrupting our gregarious discussions.

Light-speckled green ferns offer

Shadows to hide beneath,

a shoreline

to breath between heaves

And gasps.

The blacksmith’s hammer

rings throughout.

Sounds and sights

Return.

Michael Carney