The children give their first concert
to residents at the Extended Care Center
and they arrive with fifteen or more
different ideas of how to do it
after a year of private lessons
when the piano player had to be
tied to the bench to keep him still.
The director reminds them
We are working together now
and don't you dare ask questions
on this first day we play
outside of the classroom.
Then he takes the place
of someone who didn't show up
in the flute section.
They're loud and getting louder,
no danger of falling asleep
even during Brahms’ lullaby.
The saxophone player is sent
to sit on the side lines,
the percussionists move around
with a crash of cymbols.
Our feet dance in our heads
to the umpahpah of a Bavarian folksong.
We're having a flurry of snow
accompanied by a few sour notes.
One of the trombones is freezing up.
In 1926 on the stroke of midnight
Madame Schumann Heinke sang
Silent Night, Holy Night on the radio.
I was eleven years old and still hear
that long-held note on the word "Peace."
