For Pianos and Wine

For Pianos and Wine

(“People ate until they couldn’t eat any more. He gave them what they had wanted.” Psalm 78:29)

I would give anything for eight candles and a piano,
a light for each visitor in the room, a table of food,
and a tune we all knew by heart.

A draught of ale, bacon wrapped dates with an entrée of duck
or lamb,
or goat or ham,
and dessert imagined by witty minds or luckily stumbled upon
at a Mexican panadería.

I would go back in time if it helped,
to hug the finest friends (some still in arm’s reach,
some across the wireless space,
some closer than before but with back turned to late
comments and figures of speech.)
I am the same friend, only my brain has changed.
I have same love, only the scope is strange to their thinking.
I have the same calloused fingers from playing guitar alone.

I would give anything for two guitars, a flute and a horn.
An evening searching for baptism and listening to the call of
nightingales.

But I would not give up the expanse, the exploded boxes,
the labyrinth that takes me deeper, the hope that takes me sweeter,
the few new friends who think it a wonder that I share
a drink with them at all.

I would give anything to hear a voice on the line:
we heard you are hurting. We heard you’ve changed.
We heard you may be out of the tribe. We heard you’ve remained
the same. We saw your slow exit and your limping. We saw
your tears and the simple goodbye you waved when your heart
wanted to stay.

And we just wanted to say: We don’t care how your brain works today,
just join us again for bread, for candles, for pianos and wine.