ARABESQUE

I listened to you play last night
every note sparkling as it always did
clear as crystal
running in escalating scales and then
crashing chords diminishing to the smallest sound.
You were always the master of the keyboard.
The storyteller.
Every piece describing something,
the peacock, the cabaret dancer,
the woman in love by the moonlight.
It is a comfort to hear you once again
Y.ou are still here with me whenever I hear
any music we enjoyed together.
It was your music. You played it for me.
And you still do.

A NEW MOMENT

His mother knew, clutching at the pastor’s robe,
wailing from her innermost being
as they put the lifeless body of her son
into the ground
that his demons put him there.
So much a power of evil are demons;
they destroyed that sensitive spirit.
One who could not survive in this world
because he was one of melancholy.
He would not be cured by his medicine
and turned to alcohol to numb his pain.
His mother knew as she was driven away
from that hill
that his demons would not badger him again.
That her son’s spirit was finally free.
That a new moment had begun for him.
And way down, in her innermost being, she
rejoiced for him.

M JajdelskiCampbell Copyright May 2004