Father's Songs

A different note to every finger
Fingers flowing like the wind
In the air the music will linger
Without a beginning or end

She appears behind him, stealing his breath
His own little daughter, his reason for music
She alone is his soul’s purpose, his own Marybeth
Hair as soft as silk as he runs his fingers through it

This is what she wants to believe
As small fingers trace the white keys
She sits at the bench, rolling up her sleeves
Her breath comes in ragged

It was her father’s old piano
Wood stained but still shone with beauty
She lets out a note, a high soprano
It’s glorious sound ringing all around her

Oh the same white key a tear drop falls
Many more falling after it
Ignoring them she listens as the piano calls
Calls to her fingers, telling them how to move

She works without brushing the tears away
Even as she creates beautiful music the tears fall
She ignores them, because to her heart she can’t betray
She’s carrying on her father’s music

She’s the keeper of her father’s songs
Even as she grows old, they are the key to her father
She knows, at the piano is where her heart belongs
She hopes he hears her, playing along on the sky’s piano