Poetry: Sandy
Image Credit: Unsplash
And so we sit,
Two people,
In two chairs
Momentarily silenced by the sun as it settles
around us,
Its syrupy glow pooling on the black and
white horizon that has unfolded before us
When, with the stroke of his left hand,
That of a man who was born with the instinct
to use his right,
Ignites the still image before us with life
In no time he is dancing,
His steps across the keys
Melt black and white together
The line between expected
And unexpected
Gone
The stroke of his wrist
Each note,
more sure than the last
His voice leads my own fingers now
Two hands in suite
I am swept up by the melody -
To a place where the idea of fragility,
His illuminated decades ago,
Becomes blurred
And the perceived impossible
Is nothing but,
Possible
His instinct to teach is
Undeniable -
The stroke of his pen across paper
First scribbles,
Notes one day be cemented in
hardcover
The softening of notes quell the melody,
And the air around us begins to settle
He casts me a side-long grin
The right edge of his mouth pulling towards
the sky
This moment,
These moments,
Between him and I,
Resultant of the stroke that would change his
life
I wrote this piece about a year ago after Sandy, a man I had been a caregiver for in his home, passed away. At this time the COVID-19 pandemic was in full swing and very little could be done in lieu of physically gathering. So, I turned to paper to recount the quiet moments we shared before dinner by the piano. While Sandy had suffered a stroke almost 25 years prior to our meeting, he had retained much of his ability to walk, travel the world, and of course play the piano for the entirety of his life. Thus, our time spent together was filled with stories, laughter, and music; moments that transformed my previous notions of what life after a life-changing medical event could, and should, look like.