My Father’s Music

I take the stairs at a run. Stop
At the foot of the next, make a sudden drop.

And sit, my fingers make drums of my knees,
All I can hear are the sounds of the keys.

Some memories play out their notes undisturbed,
Like this, my father’s music overheard.

I still find you that way, the sound stored.
Summoned by bells? I call you with a major chord.

Opened up, my life in words written through
With a Morse code, a pattern, resembling you.

For a while, I think, it ran too fast, lost time
When I fought to know which voice was yours, which mine.

But stand by any piano, any old room.
I find where we meet by the familiar tune:

Sunday morning radio, the just heard church bell,
The deep roll of your deep laughed laugh, the well

-known hum. Much more than I grasp with paper and pen.
And all the gifts: Tallis, Britten, Bach and me, myself. A prayer. Amen

There’s music even in the words I do not know;
Francais? Auf Deutsch? Non. Not yet, no.

But play it again, something I can sing to
Your notes are the beat my heart still runs to.