Slaving over strings with all the oils
easing the way, fighting off sleepy time
as the rain crashes the glass; water boils
and the boy remembers sounds of his prime.

This was before the fall, the deception
of blues and the limits of thickened skin
before a second’s death could quell action
in the young winter’s white and muffled din.

But the music may be a portal back
to times before the sleep set in and killed
the blood that lubricated all the black
white and pearl that the wood and steel revealed.

To end the story would be like a rose
trod on after being graced by the hose.