Poem: THEN

 THEN.

Hollow shadows lying in 

Tangled webs of 

    Ages - a piano

  Waits in a rising mist of Ebony

Ivory keen in the moon's fleeting gaze, watchful in

   Respect through the drapes, torn and dark, Hanging

Heavy. Lying in state. Upon the shaped expanse,

     Bathed in a 

Cold brightness and stifled by the gaunt 

Quiet

  She lives on, captured within in gilded frame in 

   a moment

    Eternal, silent notes long since faded.

    And

      Her, gone where? Gone when? Joy in dark eyes,

        Some memory of 

Some time. Then, across the keys

     I glimpsed celestial fingers gliding on the 

              Faintest music, the spirit of the 

  Spiritless and perfume of

    Roses. A

  Ghost of summers long ago.