Adagio for Strings
from Falling Poems, page 21
ISBN 1-931002-05-3
The Cotation Press
Cotati/Venice, 2001
An old man sits in the attic of his house. He leafs through old letters.
Children, grandchildren, wives. He has known many people, many places. He has adventured throughout the world. He was vibrant. He made people laugh and weep and fall in love with his honeyed voice and his gentle smile. Small children would laugh as they sat on his knee. Old ladies would blush when he entered the room. Strong men in their prime would gather round to hear him speak
But time and storm slowly whither away even the grandest stone and it returns to the dust from which it came.
The old man sits in his chair. He is sleepy as the age creeps into his proud frame. He hunches his shoulders and squints his eyes. Once these eyes could command an audience. Now they are not sure what they see. Is that my daughter or her daughtter or her daughter in the photograph?
The dust on these memories is thick. He reads the letter and smiles at the things she said to him. He cannot remember who she was and another piece falls away, leaving emptiness where once there had been joy. Smiles, shouts, arguments drift into nothing. Surrounded, darkness looms where once green grass and flowering dresses swayed.
I do not know these people. These people in these photographs in this house that I have built over a lifetime. They slip through my hands, life and love carried away by wind and rain.