There’s one piano note my daughter plays
it’s like a pearl has appeared in the room
quasi niente like sunshine on water
ineffably tender like a white rose at the limit of its stem
a snowflake forming the keys of its crystal
a moonlit seashell butterfly instant and dove of light
a soundless note that absorbs all other notes
and like an afterimage
rings with the absence which it struck
Month: September 2020
Fall Notes
The beat of a train
At the crossroads of rain
Trucks on the street
And wiping of feet
The rasping of leaves
And patter of eaves
With leaf blowers
Offensive to the last flowers
And avian overtures
Announcing departures
Autumnal music
Turns inwardly magic
It fades from the forest
Like flowers from a florist
It creaks like a door
And falls through the floor
The descent is unkind
To the shelter of the mind
With accelerated sawing
The rot is gnawing
With tree shredders
Like men of letters
Outside our windows
Drift reds and yellows
Apples percussing
A quieter sussing
With more and more blue
Fruiting into view
More and more space
Attending the race
And late-night squalls
Pushing pianos over walls
Labor Day Weekend
The dying light is ever the same,
Borrowing the last hour of summer
And giving it a date and name,
Matching it with familiar shadows,
Or returning with rain showers
The resonance of last year’s rain.
In this neighborhood and others
Families come together
With one less leaf on their tree
And one less place at their table
And change goes unnoticed
Like a waterglass handed to a child,
No sooner the moment offered
Its own transparency vanishes.
Salvatore Ala 