She is an accomplished pianist
Who likes to spend her days
Looking out the window
Or playing the darker
Pieces of Beethoven.
At first I didn’t understand
Why She is depressed.
Then it turned out that
She had a talented son who
Might have been a concert pianist,
But was killed in the crush
At a rock concert.
Many women have had children die
And never get truly over it,
But they soldier on.
Not She who felt Her life was over
And was waiting to die.
Of course, this was unfair to her
Daughter, a pianist of modest abilities,
Who came in the afternoons
Daily to try to cheer her Mother
And get Her to reenter society.
She would have none of it,
But finally She had an epiphany
And decided on a mission
To improve Her daughter’s
Piano skills.
This poem was stimulated by and abstracts a short story by Sally Whitney, “Grace Notes”, Main Street Rag, v. 16, no. 3, p. 31-45, 2011 that much impressed me.
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