A Barren Room

-

you may seldom know how a piano was
fashioned, or how it now cares for you
more than any potential show it could
be the standing ovation of.

you understand emptiness; there is no
visual concept that can explain it, but you
see its length, stretching across the flat
and narrow sections of the room,
where you have not lived.

yet you sit on a bench you stored away
at the back of your skull, and you play,
though no one can hear.

your hands could be moving faster than
clocks' anticipation that day will come,
or they could be ebbing, one sound at
a time, one eternal chord being the canopy
of everything you've known up to this point.

you arch forward, you bow, nothing
commanding these motions except for the
deepest ache to inspire somebody.

and dear, you will.
these cultivated rooms may not be
touched by another presence, but
your songs won't be outdated.

you must believe there are echoes
that will reach someone, someplace.

-
Written 1/19/13 at 8:32 pm.