The lilting tunes
sombre and suave,
touching yet distant.
A taste – acquired.
A faraway connection,
notes and pitch-
foreign but near,
had me come back here
for more,
again and again.
There was nothing personal.
Not in tunes, or the surroundings-
all familiarly un-intrusive.
A shadow that walked along,
but at a distance.
A flavour- one gets addicted to,
but can never carry home.
The tunes hummed in my ears,
as I wandered all the way
away from where I sat –
usually, on a comfortable leather chair,
beside the glass banister,
overlooking the foyer-
surrounded by strange faces,
known behaviour and ,
polite uninterest.
The tunes hummed
as I moved in,
closing the doors to what
threatened to have me drowned!
Holding on to the lilt,
I navigated
the oceans that raged and
lashed away boundaries,
carefully erected.
No, I do not remember
the tunes.
Not a single one of them.
But I remember the relish
with which I savour them,
their effect and impact
on my state of mind and being.
And, I miss them!
The piano today,
is neatly covered.
The skilful hands that
with mastery manoeuvred
the surge and the ebb
of pitch and notes- absent.
The fair, long, elegant fingers-
artistic and professional
belonging to foreign hand,
are not playing today.
My ears are filled
with humdrum
of hushed whispers-
smothered clink
of china and steel,
some stray notes
of packaged music-
sprayed from speakers,
angled at corners.
Yet, there is a void.
My cushion
to ward off the familiar,
my anchor-
that allowed me
to wander,
lies dead-
covered in glistening coffin.
Dead-
but not buried.
Waiting,
for a rebirth-
just one touch,
of those fair foreign fingers-
impersonal, but known.
This absence today
has shown-
how filling, indeed,
the emptiness can be!
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