The instrument you played so beautifully
Is getting dusty now from underuse;
The stage was set for you to conquer all,
But life and time, they flow, both free and loose
The room is empty now, and quiet falls,
Faint sounds of traffic outside, as it flows;
I’ll never hear the song you would have sung,
For what that sounds like, heaven only
Knows
Out past the snow and frozen lake,
Behind the beauty of the scene,
Is something that’s not mine to take
And place into my word-machine —
As those who walked this land before
Call to me from both far and near:
I speak obscenities with ease,
But pass by what is hallowed
Out of fear
Lonely Cadillac
Abandoned
Luxury’s sure death
Once a regal car
Driven proud
A gift, now, to Time
The call came in four forty-two,
A voice that said that you were gone;
Now I, amid the misty dawn
Doubt the ubiety of you
Because I feel you everywhere.
In every memory, your trace;
Not held by bonds of time or space,
But in the very breathing air
I know that I am just a cloud;
A bit of vapor, floating mist
That for a moment will exist
And be with consciousness endowed
I know that you’re a lonely light
That shines aways off, glimmering
Ancestral furnace simmering
Who longs again to own the night
I know tomorrow comes a dawn
Another day of stolen care
Another morning we might share
Before the clouds and light are gone
You travelled down a road I couldn’t go
At least not yet, not till my time is here
Before you left, I wanted you to know
So many things you never got to hear
The high dirt road that wanders who-knows-where
Where we can leave behind old hope, or fear –
The chance to breathe a purer, rarer air
I often stop and think I hope you found
For though weighed down a bit with toil and care
I still, of quiet mornings without sound
Think on the many things you might have said
But you moved on to newer, higher ground
And maybe, where I couldn’t go, you tread
The soft ways of the loved and blessèd dead
Desiccated
Dead and buried
Should have then been
Left to rot
Celebrated
Prizes, varied
Out displaying
What they’ve got
Rancid cider
Brewed in batches
Drunken choices
Heart and head
Deadly spider
Stolen snatches
Robbed from voices
Of the dead
