Red Chair at the Piano Recital

A red chair under pecan trees _

outside the glass door... .

In September the children's notes

were single and slow,

songs so simple we could barely

call them music.

But now the first-year students

color the walls

with "Blue Danube''s and "Green

Boogie"s, while the chair

asserts its red space

in the April sun.

The children's curved fingers

find the white and black notes

steadily, accurately.

The lap of the chair glows

flame over the lawn.

When the kids are finished

the piano teacher

plays just one piece for us,

a Brahams intermezzo,

and the music becomes all the chairs

that ever held us, all

the chairs that ever waited,

all the chairs we ever

had to leave

without saying goodbye

while the red metal chair

under the new leafing trees

sits red, red in the green garden.

Even after we've walked out the door

for punch and cake,

no one sits in the red chair

that strums its own

upright, unrusted ostinato

steady as oceans, a pulse

around which we move.

Structure

37 lines · 9 stanzas